please do not circulate ? ?

1. Which of these people are Jewish? 2. Where do you think they are from? 3. What type of Jews MIGHT THEY BE?

? ?

L'Taken Antisemitism Training © ? ?

1. Which of these people are Jewish? 2. Where do you think they are from? 3. What type of Jews MIGHT THEY BE?

? ? ? ?

1. Which of these people are Jewish? 2. Where do you think they are from? 3. What type of Jews MIGHT THEY BE?

Hint! No, they're not all Jewish... ?

L'Taken Antisemitism Training © JEWISH COMMUNITIES AROUND THE WORLD Conversos, Sephardi Jews, Spain & Latin America In the 15th and 16th centuries, Spanish Jews (Sephardim) were the victims of the Spanish Inquisition, a concerted campaign to obliterate the Jewish religion and culture. Persecuted Sephardim were forced to convert to Catholicism, becoming “conversos”. Many fled their homes and the lives they had built. In today’s South America, descendants of Sephardim still exist - often unaware of their ancestry. Even so, many grow up unknowingly engaging in Jewish rituals passed down through generations, such as lighting candles on Friday night and not eating pork. Known as “crypto-Jews,” many have recently decided to embrace their religious heritage, sometimes at considerable personal cost. This photo, taken in Ecuador in 2007, shows a mother and daughter at her Bat Mitzvah, as both connect with their ancestors, reclaim their faith, and engage in their birthrights as Jews. Conversos are sometimes referred to by the word Marrano, a derogatory term meaning “pig” or “swine”.

Mizrachi Jews, Yemenite Jews Arriving In Israel Jews have lived in Yemen for over two thousand years. There are numerous stories passed down about how the community arrived - from non-Jews converting when the Queen of Sheba visited King Solomon, to Jews travelling to Yemen under the prophet Jeremiah. However they arrived, there were synagogues being constructed by the first century BCE, and by the fourth century CE, the leaders of the kingdomhad converted to Judaism and expected their people to do the same. After the rise of Islam, the Jewish community experienced times of both flourishing and violent persecution. In 1679, all Jews were expelled tothe Mawza region, where two thirds of the community died of starvation or disease. Those still alive were allowed to return a year later, but only to a Jewish quarter outside the citiy. Many Yemenite Jews moved to Palestine before the creation of the State of Israel. In 1947, Yemenite rioters, assisted by the police, engaged in a pogrom that killed 82 Jews and destroyed hundreds of Jewish homes and businesses. In 1948, a rumour of the Jewish ritual murder of two girls led to mass looting, leading to the majority of Yemen’s Jewish population being airlifted to Israel in Operation Magic Carpet. In the 1990s there were still hundreds of Jews living in Yemen, with a few synagogues and academies, but after two antisemitic murders in 2008 and 2012, yet more Jews were airlifted to Israel in a secret operation. Fewer than 90 Jews now live in Yemen.

Scarlett Johansson, USA Scarlett Johansson is an actress. She was born to an American Jewish mother of Russian and Polish descent and a Danish non-Jewish father. Johansson identifies as Jewish and was raised observing Jewish festivals. Her maternal great grandfather, Saul Szlamberg, moved to America before the Holocaust, working as a grocer in New York. His brother and his brother’s two daughters died in the Warsaw ghetto.

Jews of Kaifeng, China This photo is taken of the Jews of Kaifeng in the late 19th or early 20th century. Jews have lived in China for over a thousand years. It is thought the first Jews in China were merchants from Persia, Iraq, Iran and India. They may also have been European Jews fleeing the Crusades who received the Emperor’s blessing to reside in the city of Kaifeng, which was then an important hub in Silk Road trading route. The Ming dynasty (1368- 1644) required Jews to have one of 8 surnames - Ai, Shi, Gao, Gan, Jin, Li, Zhang, and Zhao. Until the 17th century “Kaifeng Jews” had largely preserved their traditions and customs. They built synagogues and used chinese character prayer books. Later, intermarriage and cultural suppression meant their numbers severely dwindled. By the beginning of the twentieth century, the Zhang clan had converted to Islam. There remain a small number of Kaifeng Jews still in China, alongside many other Jewish communities now living in China.

Ofra Haza, Yemen Ofra Haza was an Israeli singer of Yemenite heritage. Born in Tel Aviv to Yemenite immigrant parents, she grew up in poverty and became a symbol of pride in Yemenite Jewish heritage, singing in Arabic and

L'Taken Antisemitism Training © Hebrew and often wearing traditional Yemenite Jewish clothing. She won a US Grammy, topped the Eurochart and was regularly played on MTV, before dying of AIDS related illness in 2000. In England she is best known as the singing voice of Miriam in the Disney movie Prince of Egypt.

Isro’il/Bukharan Jews, Central Asia Bukharan Jews historically spoke Bukhori, a dialect of Farsi. Their name refers to the former Emirate of Bukhara - modern day Uzbekistan. They call themselves Isro’il (Israelites). They were the largest Jewish community in Central Asia, settling there from at least the fourth century CE. Early Bukharan Jews shared a mosque with local Muslims, but by the eighteenth century they faced persecution and forced conversion. By the middle of the nineteen century the community started emigrating to Palestine. From 1865, under Russian rule, Bukharan Jews could practise Judaism but were relegated to the ghetto and forced to wear distinctive clothing. The vast majority emigrated after the end of the Soviet Union. Today, there are around 150,000 Bukharan Jews in Israel and 60,000 in the USA. A few thousand still remain in Uzbekistan. Despite a population of 15,000 in 1989, almost none remain in Tajikistan after the government destroyed the Synagogue, kosher butcher and Jewish school in 2008. Bukharan Jews have their own music called Shashmaqam, which is an ensemble of stringed instruments infused with Central Asian rhythms.

Bene Israel, India Bene Israel are one of the Jewish communities in India. They arrived in India sometime almost 2000 years ago when their ancestors were shipwrecked in western India, near the coast of Konkan, while on a trading voyage to the far east. The community reached its peak in 1948 when Bene Israel numbered 20,000. The majority have now emigrated to Israel, the US, Canada and Britain.

Beta Israel, Ethiopia Beta Israel are a group of Jews who lived in what is now Ethiopia and Eritrea. They are believed to have been isolated from mainstream Jewish communities for a thousand years, and so have slightly different practises known as ‘haymanot’. A significant portion were persecuted and forced to convert to Christianity during the 19th and 20th centuries. Their own origin stories include the idea that they were part of the lost tribe of Dan, or the tribes that came to Ethiopia with Menelik I, the child of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. In 1991, Ethiopia was facing dangerous political destabilisation and the Israeli military airlifted 14,325 Ethiopian Jews to Israel in 36 hours in Operation Solomon. 130,000 Beta Israel now live in Israel, with 4000 remaining in Ethiopia, and others living around the world. Beta Israel are sometimes referred to as Falasha, a derogatory term meaning “landless wanderers”

Edith Stein, Germany Edith Stein was a Polish and German Jewish philosopher who converted to Roman Catholicism and became a Discalced Carmelite nun. She is canonised as a martyr and saint of the Catholic Church, and known by the religious name Teresia Benedicta a Cruce. After being baptised in 1922, she taught at a Catholic school in Speyer, but had to give up her position in 1933 as Christian converts were still counted as Jews by Nazi racial criteria and civil servants required an “Aryan certificate”. She joined a monastery in Cologne, but was soon sent to a monastery in the Netherlands for her safety. Theresia was arrested by the Nazis on 2 August 1942 and sent to Auschwitz, where she died in the gas chamber seven days later.

MaNishtana, USA MaNishtana is a New York-based African-American Orthodox Jew–born from two African-American Orthodox Jewish parents. He is a Rabbi and author of three books on the intersection of Jewish and African- American identity. MaNishtana was born and grew up Chabad-Lubavitch (a particular stream of Orthodox Judaism) and hails from a legacy of African-American Judaism stretching back to the 1780s.

Jason Biggs, USA Despite playing Jews “almost exclusively” since childhood, Jason Biggs is actually Roman Catholic...

L'Taken Antisemitism Training ©

The 4 I s Of Oppression '

Ideological refers to the system of beliefs and ideas. Often there’s an overall sense that one group is better than another and in some measure should have the right to control the other group.

Interpersonal refers to individual members of the dominant group personally mistreating individuals in the oppressed group.

An important note here - people in dominant groups are often not consciously oppressive. We’ve internalised the negative messages about other groups, and consider our attitudes towards them quite normal.

Institutional refers to how these ideas are embedded in the institutions of our society - the laws, the justice system, police practice, the education system, hiring policies, housing development, images shared in the media, distribution of political power, and so much more.

Internalised refers to oppressed people internalising our ideology of inferiority and believing the negative messages about ourselves. The oppressor doesn’t have to exert any more pressure because we now do it to ourselves and each other.

L'Taken Antisemitism Training © TARGETS &AGENTS OF OPPRESSION Ideological Institutional Interpersonal Internalised - Jews Muslim Muslims People Women (Target) der people Poor People Poor Disabled people People of Colour People Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian, People assumed to be People Romani & Slavic People Romani Non-binary & transgen Group Denied Power Power Group Denied Pansexual, Asexual, Queer Asexual, Pansexual, Men People (Agent) Non-Jews Non-Muslims White People Wealthy People Wealthy Cisgender people Heterosexual People Group with Power Group with Power Non-disabled people Non-Jews/Romani/Slavic Non-Jews/Romani/Slavic Sexism Racism Racism Ableism Classism Patriarchy Disableism Capitalism Antisemitism Transphobia Heterosexism Homophobia Homophobia Islamophobia White Supremacy White Supremacy Anti Muslim Hatred Name of System Name Anti-Jewish Oppression Anti-Jewish

L'Taken Antisemitism Training © PVVHSSEORJVSRWÀSQRSODFHIRUKDWHKWPO Pyramid of Hate

THE TRIANGLE OF HARM

Genocide

deliberate killing of a ŚƵŵĂŶƉŽƉƵůĂƟŽŶ

Acts of extreme violence to the individual murder, rape, arson

Acts of violence ĂƐƐĂƵůƚ͕ƚĞƌƌŽƌŝƐŵ͕ĚĞƐĞĐƌĂƟŽŶ͕ǀĂŶĚĂůŝƐŵ͕ƚŚƌĞĂƚƐ

ĐƚƐŽĨĚŝƐĐƌŝŵŝŶĂƟŽŶ ŚĂƌĂƐƐŵĞŶƚ͕ĞŵƉůŽLJŵĞŶƚ͕ĚŝƐĐƌŝŵŝŶĂƟŽŶ͕ƐŽĐŝĂůĞdžĐůƵƐŝŽŶ͕ ŚŽƵƐŝŶŐĚŝƐĐƌŝŵŝŶĂƟŽŶ͕ĞĚƵĐĂƟŽŶĂůĚŝƐĐƌŝŵŝŶĂƟŽŶ

Acts of prejudice and bigotry ƐĐĂƉĞŐŽĂƟŶŐ͕ƐůƵƌƐ͕ŶĂŵĞĐĂůůŝŶŐ͕ƌŝĚŝĐƵůĞ͕ ƐŽĐŝĂůĂǀŽŝĚĂŶĐĞ͕ĚĞͲŚƵŵĂŶŝnjĂƟŽŶ

Acts of subtle bias ƐƚĞƌĞŽƚLJƉŝŶŐ͕ũŽŬĞƐ͕ƌƵŵŽƌƐ͕ĚŝƐĐƵƐƐŝŶŐĨĞĞůŝŶŐƐǁŝƚŚůŝŬĞͲŵŝŶĚĞĚŽƚŚĞƌƐ͕ŝŶƐĞŶƐŝƟǀĞƌĞŵĂƌŬƐ͕ ĂĐĐĞƉƟŶŐŶĞŐĂƟǀĞŝŶĨŽƌŵĂƟŽŶĂŶĚƐĐƌĞĞŶŝŶŐŽƵƚƉŽƐŝƟǀĞŝŶĨŽƌŵĂƟŽŶ

The Anti Defamation League adapted the work of Gordon Allport and Gregory Stanton into this pyramid

L'Taken Antisemitism Training ©

RADAR Project: Regulating Anti-Discrimination and Anti-Racism JUST/2013/FRAC/AG/6271 1 THE CYCLE OF ANTISEMITISM

L'Taken Antisemitism Training © TROPE 1: JEWS & MONEY Jews as money grabbing, greedy and cheap

L'Taken Antisemitism Training © L'Taken Antisemitism Training © JEWS & MONEY

April Rosenblum summarises the origins of the trope: “For centuries in Christian empires, Jews were not legally permitted to work in mainstream professions. They often survived by working at trades forbidden to, or considered ‘beneath’, Christians. During the Middle Ages, Christians were not allowed to lend money because the Church believed that collecting interest from loaned money was a sin. At the same time Jews were not allowed to do many of the jobs that Christians did – they were explicitly banned from Guilds, and most professions. Since the Jews were able to collect interest from the Christians, many became money lenders and lots of rulers (including in Britain, with William the Conqueror) required Jews to be tax collectors. Although some Jews benefited from economic privilege, most remained poor, and the classic dynamic of anti-Jewish oppression went on: Jews who got to work did so at the price of everyday exposure to the violence and anger of poor peasants in debt; rulers got to use them as scapegoats in time of economic instability.”

Recent scholarship has made clear that even in the medieval era, most Jews weren’t involved in money lending, and the majority of money lenders were actually Christian (which frustrated the church, resulting in increasingly hard opposition to it). In order to enforce the idea that money lending was a negative, ‘unchristian’ practise, the Church actively portrayed it as ‘Jewish.

New York organisation Jews for Racial and Economic Justice (JFREJ) breaks down myths about money and Jews in contemporary America: “The very wealthiest individuals on the planet are predominantly Christian according to non-partisan wealth research firm New World Wealth. In 2015, their study found that more than half of the world’s millionaires identified as Christian and that there are more Hindu and Muslim millionaires than Jewish ones. Of the 13.1 million people in the world who are millionaires, 56.2% were Christians, while 6.5% were Muslims, 3.9% are Hindu and 1.7% are Jewish. Contrary to conspiracy theories about Jews - and conspiracy theories about economic dominance in general - no single group controls the planet’s wealth.”

We don’t have similar data in Britain, but it may surprise you to know that in Reform and Liberal Synagogues, around 50% of members pay a ‘reduced fee’ subscription, and that there are at least two Jewish soup kitchens operating in London today (because most food banks don’t supply Kosher food).

In Europe, antisemitic myths around Jews and money often are linked to the Rothschild family – a trope which allows antisemites to combine depictions of Jews as rich, secretly powerful, and somehow not loyal to their country through their ‘internationalism’. Rothschilds is a merchant bank. Many people, particularly progressives, may have critiques of banking as an industry – but the bank remains statistically small compared to similar banks founded by white, Christian, men that are not often conflated with the same stereotypes (e.g.. JP Morgan) and Rothschilds are not bankrolling national banks, nor the World Bank, as often accused. In common with many of the antisemitic stories about how Jews became linked to finance, the founder of Rothschild’s Bank, Mayer Amschel Rothschild, grew up in poverty in a ghetto (an area of a city, normally too small, where Jews were forced to live), where his father had been pushed into money lending because of restrictions on Jewish employment. How we talk about the Rothschilds is evidence of the double bind Jews were in – required to take on these jobs because of antisemitic laws, but then punished for having done so.

L'Taken Antisemitism Training © TROPE 2: JEWS & POWER Jews as secretly controlling the Government, media, other minorities & world

L'Taken Antisemitism Training © Jews are Behind the “Legally Black” Campaign

Diversity Macht Frei March 4, 2018 According to their website, Advocacy Academy was founded by Amelia Viney. You won’t be surprised to learn thatAdvocacyAcademy she is Jewish.

The Legally Black campaign, which racially appropriates white culture by replacing white actors with negroes in iconic movie posters, only kicked off a couple of days ago. But it’s already been endorsed by This fits with a long tradition of Jews weaponizing other minorities against Christians and Europeans, prominent politicians and actors and been given extensive coverage on TV. When your message fits the from Muhammad to Martin Luther King. And they wonder why they are hated. Establishment narrative, you get the fast-track to prime time.

Members of the campaign were interviewed on both Sky TV and the BBC this morning. The Sky News interview is shown. Note the irony of two negro news presenters complaining about underrepresentation of blacks in the media when they are only 2-3% of the UK population yet comprise 100% of the participants in this conversation. The pathetic white cuck isn’t allowed to speak.

In the course of the interview, the blacks revealed that the funding and support for their billboard campaign came from Advocacy Academy.

L'Taken Antisemitism Training © JEWS & POWER

Antisemitic ideas about Jews often portray our community as the ‘secret power’ in some way. The locus of this con- trol varies, but often involves government, media or banking, but has extended to ‘shadowy groups’ of people who are ‘really in charge’, and in some memorable cases, accusations of controlling the weather (see some excellent responses here: www.heyalma.com/best-jokes-jews-controlling-weather).

Probably the most famous example of this trope is in a document called The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which is a fabricated text pretending to be the minutes of the meeting where Jewish leaders discuss their goal of world domination. This document was a hoax that first appeared in Russia in 1903 but has since been translated to mul- tiple languages, and Henry Ford funded the printing of half a million copies to be distributed across the US in the 1920s. Despite this being totally fake and more than a century old, it is still widely available and believed today. The Protocols are a basic template for many modern anti-Jewish conspiracy theories: sneaky, greedy Jews secretly plotting to control the weather, manipulate financial systems, influence the media, destroy the Labour party, stage the 9/11 terrorist attacks, or put Black people in charge of everything.

According to April Rosenblum,“The idea that Jews control the government or the world began with church au- thorities passing down images of Jews as a group in league with the Devil, with special powers from the Devil that gave them evil control over earthly events. In Europe, Christian rulers furthered the myth that Jews were in control, by forcing Jews into roles where they appeared as “the face” of power with which everyday peasants interacted (i.e. as tax collectors). As European culture grew more secular, the idea was modernised, and brought to a new level of worldwide fame in the form of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion forgery. During the Nazi years, this European propaganda was imported to non-European cultures, including the Arab countries, where oppression of Jews had previously been based not on myths of Jewish world power, but on simpler notions that Jews ought to stay in their place as second-class citizens.”

A few things are worth lifting up in this analysis. Firstly, this links to how Jews were used as a “buffer” by those in power - sometimes literally, in the case of the Pale of Settlement. Jews are often used as the visible face of much more complex systems of power, a role referred to as “the middlemen” or “middle agents”. It reflects the function of antisemitism – which is for Jews to act as a decoy for whoever is in power - a group that is tolerated in order to, at the right moment, act as scapegoats.

As Aurora Levins Morales, a Puerto Rican Jewish writer and poet, writes: “[Anti black] Racism is like a millstone, a crushing weight that relentlessly presses down on people intended to be a permanent underclass. Its purpose is to press profit from us, right to the edge of extermination and beyond. The oppression of Jews is a conjuring trick, a pressure valve, a shunt that redirects the rage of working people away from the 1%, a hidden mechanism, a set up that works through misdirection, that uses privilege to hide the gears. Unlike racism, at least some of its targets must be seen to prosper, must be well paid and highly visible. The goal is not to crush us, it’s to have us available for crushing. Christian rulers use us to administer their power, to manage for them, and set us up in the window displays of capitalism for the next time the poor pick up stones to throw. What is hard for the angry multitudes to see is that Jews don’t succeed in spite of our oppression. We are kept insecure by our history of sudden assaults, and some

L'Taken Antisemitism Training © of us, a minority of us, are offered the uncertain bribes of privilege and protection. Privilege for a visible sample of us is the only way to make the whole tricky business work. Then, when the wrath of the most oppressed, whether Russian peasants starving on potatoes or urban US People of Color pressed to the wall, reaches boiling point, there we are: The Tsar’s tax collector, the shopkeeper and the pawnbroker, the landlord and the lawyer, the social worker and the school administrator. And whether it’s a Polish aristocrat watching the torches go by on pogrom or the Episcopalian banker discreetly out of sight while working class people tell each other that Jews control the economy, the trick works.”

Secondly, part of how Antisemitism often works is by suggesting that Jews aren’t vulnerable, or not as vulnerable as other communities. This means often that, combined with segregation of Jews, or the deliberate opportunity to al- low some Jews to rise to positions of power and prominence, we are often divided from the very people who would normally be our allies. We’re seen as ‘not really at risk’ or ‘crying wolf’. The most obvious undermining of the idea that the Jews are so powerful is the fact that a third of Jews were murdered in the Holocaust - the Jewish community has still not reached its pre -Holocaust numbers. This happened the last century and on our own continent - and our country only let in a small number of children, despite Jewish communities begging the Home Office. This is why Holocaust denial is such an important trope for antisemites – it seeks to “prove” that Jews aren’t really vulnerable, as that would mean they can’t be all-powerful.

Thirdly, this trope often interplays with other kinds of racism, particularly anti-black racism. Eric K. Ward, author of Skin in the Game who spent time with white supremacist groups, writes, “The successes of the civil rights movement created a terrible problem for White supremacist ideology. White supremacism had been the law of the land, and a Black-led social movement had toppled the political regime that supported it. How could a race of inferiors have unseated this power structure through organizing alone? Some secret cabal, some mythological power, must be manipulating the social order behind the scenes. This diabolical evil must control television, banking, enter- tainment, education, and even Washington, D.C. It must be brainwashing White people, rendering them racially unconscious. What is this arch-nemesis of the White race, whose machinations have prevented the natural and inevitable imposition of white supremacy? It is, of course, the Jews. Jews function for today’s White nationalists as they often have for antisemites through the centuries: as the demons stirring an otherwise changing and hetero- geneous pot of lesser evils ”

L'Taken Antisemitism Training © TROPE 3: JEWISH BODIES Jews as big-nosed, weak-bodied and pale or yellow skinned

L'Taken Antisemitism Training © L'Taken Antisemitism Training © JEWISH BODIES

As we have seen, there is no single way to “look” Jewish. However, there have long been historic tropes about how Jews look – they normally are depicted as weak, big and hooked nose, with pale or yellow skin.

Part of this is an antisemitic trope of Jews as “foreign” or “other” - Jews are often portrayed xenophobically for the purpose of being juxtaposed with a European, blonde haired, blue eyed, “Aryan” ideal. Historically (until the 1950s), even light- skinned Ashkenazi Jews were not considered ‘white’ in Britain, America, or South Africa – and to white supremacists they still are not. Deep in antisemitism is the idea that Jews are a foreign pollutant, and so antisemitic depictions of Jews often portray us as that. In modern day imagery, Jews are often depicted as just very ‘other’ – photos of Charedi men from the back have become the stock image used by even mainstream news channels.

Some tropes are worth being particularly aware of:

• Horns. Some of the imagery is simply to make Jews look unattractive and devil-like. Jews are often depicted in antise- mitic cartoons as having horns – which combines both a Christian idea that Jews were in league with the devil, and a deliberate mistranslation of a verse of Torah where Moses is described as coming down from Sinai with beams of light coming out of his head.

• A large or hooked nose. The truth is, there is no Jewish nose. Where does this trope come from? Just to prove how rooted this idea is in genetics, it doesn’t come about until the 12th century. At that time, a new Christian devotional style becomes popular - one that focused on the suffering of a mortal Jesus on the cross. Ideas that Jews were ‘hard hearted’ to the suffering of Jesus result in the earliest depiction of a nose being symbolic of Jewish bodies. Jews were portrayed as turning their head so as to highlight the lack of concern they were giving to Jesus’ suffering, thus revealing a large nose in profile. In time, that idea was expanded to all Jews. Sara Lipton writes, “This image served many purposes. In being so fleshily vivid and realistic, the Jew’s face seemed to embody for Christian viewers the physical, secular, material world, a realm with which Jews had long been associated in Christian polemic. Four centuries of seeing pointy-hatted, big-nosed, bearded Jews in art had conditioned Christians to regard Jews as different and socially distant.” Other theorists have suggested other, psychological frames played a part – that the nose is a stand in for a circumcised penis, somehow deformed in the Christian imagination. This idea has roots in the European imagination all the way to back to Ovid, who wrote “noscitur e nano quanta sit hast viro” - “It is known from the nose how much “haft” has the man”.

• Jewish men as weak. Some of the antisemitic imagery, perhaps unsurprisingly, has roots in real antisemitic experi- ence. Jews were banned from carrying weapons under both Christian and Muslim regimes, and Jews repeatedly experienced violence they were not able to defend themselves or their families from. This played a big part in the re-imagining, post-Holocaust, of a militarised and secure Jewish ideal. Today, we often see images of Jewish men as nerdy, weak or physically in contrast to the strong Aryan ideal.

• Jews as smelling bad. This is a trope that originated in the medieval era with the idea that Jews bodies smelled as a result of drinking Christian blood. It has largely fallen out of use, but occasionally comes up in new ways – for example, in a Swiss hotel that displayed a sign demanding Jewish guests had a shower before using the swimming pool, the story of an airline removing a Jewish family for smelling bad, or in the phrase , “stinking Jews” that is still re- peated today.

L'Taken Antisemitism Training © TROPE 4: Jews & murder Jews as murderous child killers & blood-lusting

L'Taken Antisemitism Training © L'Taken Antisemitism Training © Jews & murder

One of the most famous antisemitic tropes is the Blood Libel. It began in the 12th century in Norwich – a Christian child called William died, and Jews were accused of being the reason why. The trope, in its classic form, accuses Jewish communities of seeking the blood of non-Jews – and normally non-Jewish children - to use in religious rituals (e.g. as an ingredient in Passover matzah, or to recreate the crucifixion of Jesus.)

Whilst originating in England, this Blood Libel later repeats across Europe, and then across much of the rest of the world -

• In 1250, the cult of Dominguito del Vals in Spain claimed the child was murdered by Jews • Along with William of Norwich, Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln and Simon of Trent became objects of local cults and veneration in the UK after similar accusations. • Attacks on Jews after false accusations have occurred also in Bristol, Bury St Edmunds, Gloucester, York and London. • In 1910, Jews in Shiraz, Iran are killed for the same story • Attacks occur across the Russian Empire with the same justification • Even in 2005, 20 members of the Russian Duma called for all Jewish organisations to be banned because of “ritual murder”

There have been repeated killing of Jews when this accusation has occurred. According to Walter Laqueur, “Altogether, there have been about 150 recorded cases of blood libel (not to mention thousands of rumours) that resulted in the arrest and killing of Jews throughout history, most of them in the Middle Ages. In almost every case, Jews were murdered, sometimes by a mob, sometimes following torture and a trial.”

In England, the most famous account of libel was written by Chaucer in 1255 after a child named Hugh was found dead. This lead to a number of Jews being executed by the Crown.

In the 16th century, Suleiman the Magnificant, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, issued a royal decree denounc- ing blood libels. In 1955, Church of England leaders put up a plaque at Lincoln Cathedral to apologise for “trumped up stories of ‘ritual murders’ of Christian boys by Jewish communities. . .These fictions cost many innocent Jews their lives…Such stories do not redound to the credit of Christendom”. In Catholicism, the Vatican officially banned the cult of Dominguito in 1965. Despite this, his icons still remain in cathedrals in Seville and Zaragoza.

In Judaism, the use of blood (human or otherwise) in cooking is prohibited by the kashrut (kosher dietary laws). Blood from slaughtered animals may not be consumed, and it must be drained out of the animal (Leviticus 17:12-13).

L'Taken Antisemitism Training © TROPE 5: Jews & loyalty Jews as the conspiring fifth column: the enemy of Capitalism, Com- munism, the Church and Christianity

L'Taken Antisemitism Training © Amelia Viney

Hate mail 1 message

Charlotte Fischer 24 January 2020 at 15:40 To: "[email protected]"

From: Charlotte Fischer Sent: 28 October 2016 07:22 To: Carina Crawford­Rolt ; Human Resources CUK Subject: Fwd: Muslims Refugees in Israel

Just forwarding to you so there is a record.

C

Charlotte Fischer Community Organiser, Barnet & the Jewish Community Citizens UK www.citizensuk.org

Sent from my iPhone

Begin forwarded message:

From: Jen Greenberg Date: 28 October 2016 06:05:29 BST To: [email protected] Subject: Muslims Refugees in Israel

Hi Charlotte,

I saw the video of your fellow Jews advocating for more Muslim and black refugees in the UK. Why don't you jews put your money where your mouth is and send them all to Israel or to Saudi. Those are rich countries. Stop destroying the UK and Europe with your filthy cousins. Keep them all in Israel or the Middle East.

It was a big mistake bringing the Jews into the UK before WW­2 and also fighting against Hitler. If only we knew how you rats would bite us in the behind, we would have not helped you. So stop your foolishness and now we know why you jews were kicked out of every country in the world. You tried to destroy them. Karma will one day destroy you destroyers.

Jen.

L'Taken Antisemitism Training © Jews & loyalty

The function of Antisemitism is for Jews to act as a decoy for whoever is in power - a group that is tolerated in order to, at the right moment, act as scapegoats. When there is unrest, Jews are presented as the ‘power’ - the reason why something bad is happening.

One of the tropes that allows this to work is of Jews as the ‘enemy’. This can be framed as Jews not being loyal to a country, a political party, a ‘race’, a social class, or any other grouping.

In the 19th century, with the beginnings of nationalism and Jewish emancipation, these concerns of loyalty were often framed around the fact Jews had behaviours that were not shared by secular people or Christians – they kept dietary or religious practises, and the fact Jewish communities reached across nation state borders – so was there true loyalty to each other?

As part of this concern around Jews and their loyalty, Jews are often portrayed as crafty or cunning. This also fits into the cycle of antisemitism, where Jews are deliberately isolated from other communities who could be allies by being seen as a problem instead. Most recently, this trope has been used by some members of the Black Hebrew Israelites, who have portrayed Jews as the fake descendants of the twelve tribes of Israel (usurping the true descendants, black and brown people).

Confusingly (for Jews too!) this trope of Jews and loyalty can mean Jews are – depending on whether the anti- semitism is coming from the left or the right – depicted as both communist radical agitators or as the capitalists behind structural oppression betraying working people. This played out recently when some Labour activists described a Jewish community protest against antisemitism in the party as really being at the behest of ring wing Conservative stooges, despite the Jewish Labour Movement, Jewish Labour members, and a number of Labour MPs attending.

In left wing antisemitism, Jews are often portrayed as right wing, conservative, and associated with money. In right wing antisemitism, Jews are often portrayed as agents of communism or socialism, a force allied to other minorities and progressive communities, and behind civil rights, feminism, or multiculturalism.

As Ruth Wodak puts it, “You have sort of the communist - the revolutionary, and you have the capitalist - the rich Jew. You have the intellectual, who’s sort of thinking about how to upheave, and destroy, and change society. On the other hand, you have the greedy Jew, who’s only after your money and basically who only trades, who doesn’t really work. So my theory about antisemitism is what I call the “Judeus ex machina,” which means whenever you need an enemy image, you can produce one by instrumentalizing any clichés about Jews. And that seems to work very well right now, that whenever you need some kind of cliché and stereotype, it’s like if you would grab into a big bag and you just pull out whatever suits this kind of political function. “

L'Taken Antisemitism Training © TROPE 6: JEWS, GOD & THE DEVIL Jews as the devil, demonic and the embodiment of evil

L'Taken Antisemitism Training © JEWS, GOD & THE DEVIL

Jews as the ‘source of evil’ is a common trope, and not unconnected to those around Jews and power or Jews and appearance.

In the early days of Christianity, this was framed was a theological battle around Jews refusing to accept Chris- tianity - if they wouldn’t accept this version of God then they are effectively rejecting salvation and must be in support of the devil. And in our section on bodies, we’ve already covered tropes of the Jews as literally horned like the devil.

Much of the sense of Jews as evil increases when the Roman Empire become Christian. From this point onwards, it is no longer politic for the Roman authority to be responsible for Jesus’ death, and so the role of Rome is minimised and Jews become responsible for Deicide.

Under Nazism, antisemitism was also framed as a battle against evil. ‘Redemptive antisemitism’ saw destroying Jews as destroying a source of sin that must be eradicated to save the world. Nazis believed in a ‘natural hi- erarchy’ of humans that Jews undermined, claiming that peace could only be achieved by murdering Jews and returning to that order.

In 2017, white nationalists in the US marched in Charlottesville under the banner “Jews are Satan’s children”. In an- other example about how the same antisemitic tropes can be used by both sides of the political spectrum, leaders such as Louis Farrakhan in the Nation of Islam have also repeatedly invoked the imagery of “Satanic Jews”.

More recently, some members of the Hebrew Israelites, a black separatist church who are not considered Jewish by the Jewish community (and are entirely unrelated to the many black Jews), have been in the headlines for carrying out lethal antisemitic hate crimes. Some Hebrew Israelites hold antisemitic views as fundamental parts of their ideology. Recently, a member was filmed verbally harassing a Jewish family on the Northern Line tube in London and another member shoot dead three people in a kosher supermarket in New Jersey. Antisemitic He- brew Israelite ideology draws on some of the same tropes we’ve seen before – it asserts that Jews are liars and false worshippers of God, that they are working for and/or worship Satan, and that they have tricked their way into being seen as the descendants of the Israelites when in fact Hebrew Israelites are the ‘true descendants’ of the Twelve Tribes.

L'Taken Antisemitism Training © LESSONS ON LANGUAGE WHAT IS SAID OR DONE The Jewish Litmus Test

WHAT MIGHT BE HEARD OR UNDERSTOOD This is when Jews have to effectively pass an additional test that other folks don’t, by relaying their politics on Israel-Palestine, or the Labour party, before they are allowed to participate.

There’s two major problems with this. One is obviously that it’s racist. The fact we are Jewish shouldn’t in itself be cause for suspicion or additional checks. The second is that it harms our fight against antisemitism. A commitment to fighting antisemitism has to extend to all Jews, not just to Jews you agree with. Ditto racism, feminism, homophobia and so on - respecting women that you respect is not the same as respecting women. The reason for this is best framed by the academic an authour Keith Kahn-Harris, when he talks about a concept of ‘selective’ versus ‘consensus’ antisemitism:

“Consensus Antisemitism is easily identifiable - the open, unashamed, visceral hatred, disdain or abuse directed at Jews as Jews. It does not seek Jewish approval and has no place for anything other than the occasional, highly excep- tional, Jew within it. Consensus Antisemitism is indifferent to who Jews actually are and what they actually believe, and is sometimes entirely ignorant of them. The nexus of politics and identity is not a problem for consensus Antisemites as there is no politics that Jews could hold that would “save” them. Consensus Antisemitism is directed at all Jews and has no interest in Jewish diversity; it assumes that Jews themselves form a consensus. When Robert Bowers opened fire on worshippers at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh he shouted “All Jews must die”. In contrast, selective Antisemitism is intensely interested in and even knowledgeable about who Jews are and, in particular, what politics they hold. Se- lective Antisemites seek out Jews for approval or damnation; they make alliances with some Jews and hold them close.”

Here’s why only fighting antisemitism directed against Jews you like isn’t good enough: because no Jew, no matter how much you may disagree with them on Israel-Palestine, deserves to be killed for being Jewish. When a consensus anti- semite, a person who really hates all Jews, comes for us, every Jew is hurt by it. And picking and choosing the Jews you like, or finding one or a handful of Jews that agree with you, just builds the idea that some Jews are okay and some aren’t – when the commitment to fighting against racism has to be unconditional. No Jew deserves to experience anti- semitism no matter what other horrible politics they have that we may need to hold them accountable for – otherwise you end up applying rights for some but not all.

WHAT IS SAID OR DONE Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS)

WHAT MIGHT BE HEARD OR UNDERSTOOD Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions is a non violent strategy that has been used in many struggles, from the Civil Rights Movement to the anti-apartheid movement. It is not innately an antisemitic strategy. The Palestinian BDS campaign, headquartered in Ramallah, does not ask for a boycott on Jews, it very specifically boycotts Israeli products and state organisations and their representatives. Not everyone who supports BDS necessarily understands that, but that is what the Palestinian call is for. We wanted to flag why, even with this specific framing, it is so painful to some people in our community. Specifically for Jews, a boycott often echoes his- torical experiences of boycotts of Jewish businesses, specifically but not exclusively under Nazi Germany (boycotts of Jewish businesses also existed in Canada, the US, Poland and Austria). From the 1st April 1933, the Nazi government announced a boycott of Jewish owned businesses, their first official act of discrimination against Jews. A star of David was painted on the doors and windows of many Jewish owned businesses, and SS officers stood outside of them to intimidate non-Jews not to go in. Signs went up saying, ‘don’t buy from Jews’, ‘the Jews are our misfortune!” and, somewhat ironically now, ‘Go to Palestine!”. These boycotts resulted in a number of attacks on Jews and Jewish buildings. That doesn’t mean BDS is innately antisemitic or an illegitimate tactic – it just means that it can be quite traumatising for a lot of Jews and Jewish communities.

L'Taken Antisemitism Training © WHAT IS SAID OR DONE Stereotypes of Jews (Jewish Princess, Jewish Mother. . . )

WHAT MIGHT BE HEARD OR UNDERSTOOD I’d put this in the confusing box of things that are sometimes used by Jews, but should not be used by non Jews – like the n-word by black people. The image of a Jewish princess as a rich, greedy, spoilt, shallow young Jewish woman is just an ancient trope of Jews as money grabbing wrapped up in misogynistic clothing.

There is some odd gendered framing of Jewish women as “Jewish Mothers” – that we are somehow overbearing, hy- pochondriac worriers, obsessed with feeding, matchmaking and k’velling about our children. Jews actually invoke this trope all the time – but it may not be one for non-Jews to use. Partly that’s because it creates a box that Jewish women are then meant to fit into. As it so happens, I do like feeding people, but I’m not even a mother, and I’m definitely not your mother, so a non-Jew tying that quality to my Jewishness feels like I’m being forced into some weird performance of what Jews should be.

WHAT IS SAID OR DONE Comparing Jews or Israel to Nazis or Hitler

WHAT MIGHT BE HEARD OR UNDERSTOOD Let’s look at this through a feminist lens: we would never allow someone to use the worst thing that has happened to a person (where they were unarguably a victim) as the same stick to beat that person with. It is not appropriate to use the fact someone has been raped as a weapon against them - we wouldn’t say “as someone who has survived rape, how can you justify xyz”. People’s ideology and actions are open to criticism, but not by weaponising things they were victims of.

In the same vein, we recommend you don’t use language around Nazis, or comparisons to Nazism, to describe Jews or the state of Israel - 1) it’s not accurate; 2) It causes harm by (re)traumatising people. Anything you want to point out about a person or a state’s behaviour you can say directly and clearly without comparing it to the party that perpetrated genocide against its people.

WHAT IS SAID OR DONE “Slur” or “smear”

WHAT MIGHT BE HEARD OR UNDERSTOOD As the Community Security Trust writes: “The implication of this ‘smear’ allegation is not just that complainants are wrong about whether there is a significant problem of antisemitism. . . it is that they deliberately and maliciously invent, exaggerate or misrepresent alleged examples of antisemitism, in a coor- dinated and knowing way, for political purposes. This directly contradicts fundamental anti-racist principles, as set out in The MacPherson Report of the inquiry into the murder of Stephen Lawrence, that an allegation of racism should be taken seriously and investigated in good faith.

Even worse, [when in relation to Labour] the notion that Jews would lie about antisemitism in order to prevent the elec- tion of a Prime Minister who would care for ‘the many’ against ‘the few’ echoes antisemitic conspiracy theories that accuse Jews of dishonesty and manipulation in pursuit of goals that are opposed to the interests of the nation as a whole. It assumes bad faith, cunning and secret coordination: standard features of antisemitic conspiracy theories down the ages. . .”

According to academic Dr David Hirsh, writing about the ‘smear’ allegation in 2018: “The standard response to Jews is not that they have misjudged the situation, perhaps for understandable reasons related to their history. . . The standard response to Jews is that they know that their claims of having experienced antisemitism are false, and they persist in making them anyway for selfish tribal reasons…Moreover this is the charge made against the community as a whole, not only against particular individuals… Make no mistake, the charge against the Jewish community is that it is involved in a conspiracy against the left. Any individual could get it wrong. But when a whole community gets it wrong together, in an organised and co-ordinated way, and in bad faith, then the allegation is one of Jewish conspiracy to lie and to smear.”

L'Taken Antisemitism Training © WHAT IS SAID OR DONE Zionist & Zio

WHAT MIGHT BE HEARD OR UNDERSTOOD First of all, the word Zionist is not always used as a negative. Lots of Jews will define themselves positively as Zionists. But there are a few things we want to say about the pejorative use of the term.

• Don’t use it as synonym or euphemism for Jew or Jewish • Definitely don’t use the terms Zio, ZioNazi, Zio troll • Zionism is a really broad church. Most simply, it is a form of nationalism that believes in a relationship between the Jewish people and the land that is now the modern states of Israel and Palestine. What that relationship looks like varies significantly from person to person - from settlers who believe in one Jewish- only state encompassing the whole of Israel/Palestine, to cultural Zionists or groups like Brit Shalom, who wanted to live in the land of Israel, but not in a Jewish state, sharing exactly equal status with Palestinians. • If you repeat any of the tropes we’ve spoken about that have existed for hundreds of year, and you just change the word Jewish to Zionist, it will sound like you’re being antisemitic. This is partly because others have already played that game - language gets co-opted. • Take a moment to think about this in the context of other struggles. Most of us are familiar with the term queer. When we were growing up, it was mainly used in a derogatory way, and has been deliberately reclaimed by LGBTQ communities. Ditto, if you think of the word n-e-g-r-o, which was not innately negative (it is the French for black and 100 years ago most black organisations referred to their own organisations with that in the title. These words got co-opted or reclaimed and the meanings changed. As a result, people who are not black should not use any of the n-words. • Language is a social frame and so the meaning of your words is not only decided by you. Somebody can’t use the n-word and acceptably say “well, I didn’t mean it like that” – other people have imbued it with meaning that exists regardless of whether they mean it that way or not. And lots of people on the far right have already chosen to do that with the word Zionist. • The far right uses the term Zionist in very problematic ways. They refer to the ZOG, or Zionist Occupation Government, not to refer to Palestine, but to refer to a conspiracy theory that Jews secretly control all western governments. Just in case they weren’t being subtle enough in that antisemitic trope, they sometimes refer to the JOG, or Jewish Occupational Government. • Far right neo-Nazi websites use the word Zio or Zionist for Jew all the time, switching the word “Jewish” with “Zionist” but referring to the same conspiracies or tropes e.g. “Zionist media”. It’s not good enough to say whatever you were going to say and defend it with the justification “I said Zionist, I didn’t mean Jew!” • This means it is incredibly important to be specific. E.g.“I hate his Zio politics” versus “I don’t agree with an ethno-nationalist state that affords some groups within it more rights than others”. • This doesn’t mean we can guarantee no one will ever find your words offensive, but it means you have a much better chance of advocating for an anti-racist cause that matters without invoking another form of racism. • By the way, this isn’t the only euphemism for Jewish – Rothschilds, North London intellectuals, New York humour. . . Jewish is much shorter to say – just use it, then at least we’ll all be on the same page.

L'Taken Antisemitism Training © WHAT IS SAID OR DONE Blaming Israel for Antisemitism

WHAT MIGHT BE HEARD Violent and virulent antisemitism pre-existed the state of Israel by about 2000 years. It ex- isted before the modern form of Zionism, and in fact part of the reason the current form of Zionism came about was because of antisemitism. If the state of Israel disappeared, the idea antisemitism would miraculously end is false.

WHAT IS SAID OR DONE Israel has no right to exist

WHAT MIGHT BE HEARD OR UNDERSTOOD There are three main things that get brought up for some Jews when they hear this phrase. The first is a feeling of exceptionalism - why does everyone else have the right to self-determina- tion in the form of a nation state and the Jewish people don’t? We question other state’s governments and policies, but rarely their continued existence, despite plenty of them being founded on war, colonisation, and genocide. For some Jews, it’s the double standard that can feel troubling.

The second is around the erasure of Jewish history. Jews have lived in Israel/Palestine for thousands of years, and it has a central place in our story as a historic homeland from which our ancestors were forcibly exiled. Sometimes, the idea of Israel not having the right to exist can be used as a way to deny the historic and religious connection of the Jewish people to the land, and in turn can feel like co-option of the Jewish story.

The third is around safety. For many Jews the deep and difficult question is, “If Israel ceases to exist, then where do we go when things fall apart again?” As a people, we’ve been thrown out of almost every country we’ve ever lived in. Most of the time, no one took us in - we were met with closed doors. Even the Jews who would never move to Israel of their own free will can see it as a safety net - something put to the test when Soviet and Ethiopian Jews faced perse- cution in the countries they called home for centuries. No matter how we individually feel about it as a country, If Israel ceases to be, many Jews fear that there will be no back up - we face the possibility of being stateless once again and without options should we face attempted annihilation.

There are all sorts of very important arguments within the community about whether the state of Israel as it exists today really does makes Jewish people safer. And there’s no consensus about whether a different incarnation of Israel/Palestine would make Jewish people less safe. It is also true that there are plenty of Jews who strongly believe in Palestinian rights.

This is simply to say that questing the legitimacy of the state to exist has complex undertones because the phrase has been used to mean everything from promoting a two-state solution - to one shared Republic which affords all peoples equal rights and power - to calling for all Jews to be pushed into the sea. Because there are people who use this phrase to mean the forcible removal of every Jewish person from Israel/Palestine, it’s often the ambiguity of this phrase that leads to it being complicated for some Jews. As before, we suggest being specific.

To be clear, it is absolutely possible to criticise the State of Israel without being antisemitic, but this requires intentionality.

L'Taken Antisemitism Training © GLOSSARY AJO Anti-Jewish oppression; the systemic or institutional oppression of Jewish people.

Antisemitism A modern term coined in 1879 by German nationalist Wilhem Marr, to give a sense of scientific va- lidity to the hatred of Jews. Has only ever been used to mean hatred and abusive behaviour towards Jews.

Ashkenazi Technically: of Central or Eastern European Jewish descent. Today, however, it is often used as a catchall term that includes Western European Jews as well

Ashkenormativity The institutionally and socially enforced omnipresence of Ashkenazi culture and history within Jewish spaces as well as society as a whole, resulting in the erasure, marginalization and diminution of other Jewish traditions and narratives.

Assimilation A process by which non-dominant or non-mainstream people or cultures slowly take on more and more features of the dominant culture, and slowly lose their native/original cultural markers.

Coded Language A way that racist or sexist ideas are expressed without explicitly being clear that they are racist or sexist. In German Lopez’s definition, “the term describes phrases that are so often targeted at a specific group of people, or a specific idea, that eventually the circumstances of a phrases use are blended into the phrase’s meaning...since “thug” has been used so often to describe black men even when they’re doing nothing wrong, it now carries a racist connotation.” Professor Haney-Lopez has written “The way these words play into stereotypes without outright mentioning them gives the user some leeway….it allows people to say, ‘Hey, I’m just criticizing the behaviour, not criticizing a racially defined group”. With antisemitism, terms such as Zionist, Zio, North London elite, metropolitan elite, global media have all been used.

Christian Hegemony “The everyday, systemic set of Christian values, individuals and institutions that dominate all aspects of U.S. society” and date back to hundreds of years of global history. According to author Paul Kivel, “It is a complex and shifting system that benefits all Christians, those raised and those passing as Christian. It refers to the concentration of power and wealth accumulated to a predominantly Christian power elite, while all others experience exploitation and constant vulnerability to violence.”

Dog Whistle A subtly aimed political message which is intended for, and can only be understood by, particular groups.

Ethnicity A social group that shares a common and distinctive culture, religion, or language.

Gentile/Goy A non-Jewish person. Goy literally means nation. Not pejorative, but sometimes wrongly assumed to be by non-Jews.

Ghetto A part of a city, especially a slum area, occupied by a minority group or groups. The term was first used in Venice, where in 1516 Jews were forced to live in a specific area (although this was not the first time that Jews were forced to live in a segregated area of the city). The ghetto was a walled quarter with its gates locked at night. Jews were forced to pay the cost of building the wall. Since then, ghetto has referred to any small area of land that populations of Jews were forced to live in throughout history. Another infamous example was the Warsaw Ghetto in World War II Nazi-occupied Poland.

L'Taken Antisemitism Training © Holocaust Denial Essentially just another conspiracy theory about Jews. Holocaust deniers claim that the murder of 6 million Jews by the Nazis never took place or they minimize the number of Jews killed. They allege a secret, massive conspiracy by Jews to fool the world, ignoring the obvious and overwhelming evidence to the contrary and the basic absurdity of their clam. As with climate change deniers, 9/11 conspiracists, and birthers, they often use rhetoric that calls for an “open de- bate” about the Holocaust, or describe the issue as a “controversy” when in fact there is no disagreement about the tragic truth of the Jewish genocide anywhere outside of antisemitic fringe groups and there is nothing to debate.

Ladino/Judaeo-Spanish A form of Spanish that was spoken by Sephardi Jews. It was historically written in the Hebrew alphabet but is now normally written in the Latin alphabet. Once the trade language across most the Balkans, it is now under threat with most of its speakers being very elderly.

Litmus Test Referencing chemistry, a pass-fail test, meaning to judge someone harshly based on a single belief or other criteria.

Mizrachi Jews who were indigenous to the Middle East, North Africa, Central Asia, and the Balkan region, many for up to 2,500 years. Distinct from Sephardi Jews, many of whom migrated and settled in these same regions after their expulsion from Spain, but historically many Mizrahi Jews have referred to themselves – or been referred to – as Sephardi Jews

Neo Nazis A term that usually refers to individuals or groups who sub- scribe to white supremacist ideology, and or specifically the ideology and rhetoric of Adolf Hitler and the German Nazi party, usually centered around antisemitic beliefs.

Pogrom A violent riot including attacks, killing and/or persecution of an ethnic or religious group, sometimes in- tended to purge that group from a town or region. (In our context, aimed at Jewish people.)

Scapegoat A person or entity onto which blame is unfairly and irrationally attached.

Scientific Racism/Racial Biology Scientific racism is a pseudoscientific belief that empirical evidence (such as skull size, skin thickness, nose size, hair texture, blood colour) exists to support or justify racism, racial inferiority, or racial superiority. Scientific racism was common from the 1600s to the end of World War II.

Sephardim Jews who trace their heritage to Spain and Portugal, but who after the Inquisition may have moved to the Middle East, other parts of Europe, North Africa or the Americas.

Spanish Inquisition An extension of the Papal Inquisition, set up in 15th century Spain by Catholic monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella, who also sent Christopher Columbus on his expedition to the Americas. After forcing all religious heretics to either convert to Christianity or leave Spain (thereby relinquishing all assets to the Church), the Inquisition itself lasted hundreds of years with the goal of investigating, torturing, and killing Jewish, Muslim, and Romani conversos. It did not legally end until 1834.

White Supremacy According to Frances Lee Ansley, writing in the Cornell Law Review, white supremacy is “A political, economic and cultural system in which whites overwhelmingly control power and material resources, conscious and unconscious ideas of white superiority and entitlement are widespread, and relations of white dominance and non- white subordination are daily re-enacted across a broad array of institutions and social settings.” White supremacy is the system of oppression that empowers white people at the expense of People of Colour.

L'Taken Antisemitism Training © White Supremacist People who are invested in actively perpetuating the ideology of white supremacy and who generally believe that white Christians are genetically and culturally superior to other races and religions. White supremacist groups often have long histories of antisemitic and racialized violence.

Xenophobia A fear or hatred of foreign people or ideas.

Yiddish The historical language of Ashkenazi Jews, and a combination of Hebrew and German and Aramaic. It is written in the Hebrew alphabet. Before the Holocaust, 11-13 million of the 17 million Jews alive spoke Yiddish; 85% of Jews who were killed in the Holocaust were Yiddish speakers. For many of the Chasidic Jews in London, it will be the language the speak.

Trope A significant recurring theme or motif.

Zionist An extremely complicated and often confusing term, as it can be used quite legitimately in political discus- sion. Zionism is simply the belief of the Jewish people in their right to exist, free from persecution, in their own country. Those claiming to be only anti-Zionist, not antisemitic are denying Israel’s right to exist, which is considered to be one of the manifestations of antisemitism. Criticism of specific policies of the Israeli government is not antisemitic.

Zionism According to Wikipedia: Zionism is the national movement of the Jewish people that supports the re-es- tablishment of a Jewish homeland in the territory defined as the historic Land of Israel (roughly corresponding to Canaan, the Holy Land, or the region of Palestine). Modern Zionism emerged in the late 19th century in Central and Eastern Europe as a national revival movement, in reaction to antisemitic and exclusionary nationalist move- ments in Europe. Soon after this, most leaders of the movement associated the main goal with creating the desired state in Palestine, then an area controlled by the Ottoman Empire.

Advocates of Zionism view it as a national liberation movement for the repatriation of a persecuted people residing as minorities in a variety of nations to their ancestral home- land. Critics of Zionism view it as a colonialist, racist and exceptionalist ideology that led advocates to violence during Mandatory Palestine, followed by the exodus of Palestinians, and the subsequent denial of their right to return to property lost during the 1948 war.

‘Zionist’ is increasingly being used as a way of avoiding saying Jew. People who do this will usually exhibit other forms of antisemitic behaviour. The use of modifications, such as Zio, ZioTroll, and especially ZioNazi is always Antisemitic in intent.

L'Taken Antisemitism Training © what to do tomorrow How to start dismantling Antisemitism in your relationships & organisations IDEOLOGICAL

Tune your ears. This is our first and most important job. Commit to becoming literate in antisemitism, Judaism, and the Jewish community. This takes time and energy and requires an active choice to understand the roots and realities of an incredibly complex system of oppression. Read, discuss, reflect, and repeat.

Avoid talking about the Jewish community as a monolith. Don’t erase Jews of colour by perpetuating the idea that all Jews are white and Ashkenazi. Avoid falling into the trap of assuming all Jews share the same socioeconomic status, beliefs, access to power, voting record, or traditions. Challenge the assumption that the Jewish community has anything in common beyond that one unifying truth that we’re all Jewish.

Don’t underestimate the danger facing the Jewish community when we tell you that everything is not OK.

INTERNALISED

When we hear people reference their internalised Antisemitism, how do we respond? Firstly, we don’t take it as permission to repeat those tropes ourselves. We might hear Jews telling Jewish jokes, but that’s not an invitation for us to do the same, or even to laugh. Our job here is to (1) identify that internalised antisemitism is at play and (2) be sure not to compound any harm that is occurring by laughing, agreeing, or amplifying antisemitic sentiment - even if it’s coming from a Jewish person.

INTERPERSONAL

When you hear people using antisemitic tropes, exercise your agency and say something. Confidently interrupt wherever tropes appear, and explain to the people using them where they come from and why they’re so egre- gious. We’ve included a cribsheet below with language you can pick up and use to disrupt antisemitism the moment it happens. Expect to make mistakes. It can be hard to find the right words to navigate these messy mo- ment, and acknowledge you might say the wrong thing. Speaking out can be scary (especially in a professional context), but antisemitism thrives, in large part because people ignore or deny its existence.

Listen to, and take the lead from, your Jewish colleagues. In moments when antisemitism is in the news, be conscious of the pain and strain this can cause. If appropriate to your relationship, check in with them to acknowledge what’s going on and express your support. In equal measure, avoid putting the burden on your Jewish colleagues to explain antisemitism to you - even seemingly innocuous questions can be exhausting, uncomfortable, and unsafe to answer - so navigate the conversation with sensitivity.

Wherever you can, cultivate meaningful relationships with Jewish people.

INSTITUTIONAL

Ensure your organisation has an anti-racist code of conduct which makes it clear that interpersonal antisemitism is not acceptable. Hold more trainings like this one so every employee or member has a common language to talk about antisemitism before it happens, and understands the agreed process to interrupt and be held accountable when it does (and it will) in your spaces.

L'Taken Antisemitism Training © If your organisation has to depict Jews as part of its work - either through illustration or photograph - be careful not to repeat antisemitic tropes about the ‘Jewish body’. Similarly, avoid erasing, obsessing about, dehumanising, or generalising Charedim (strictly-Orthodox Jews), whose images are so often used to portray us as “different” and “other”.

If Christians get to take off their religious festivals without taking annual leave, consider a process for other communities to do the same (and please don’t suggest that Jews should make this up by working on Christmas!) Also, make sure Jewish holidays are in your organisational calendars and if you wouldn’t plan a big event over Christmas, avoid doing so over the major Jewish festivals.

Ensuring you consider the need for kosher food and prayer breaks in programming, and recognise that programming on Friday evening and Saturday may make it difficult for observant Jews to attend.

Make sure your messaging doesn’t perpetuate antisemitic tropes - train your communications team to understand and avoid these, especially if your organisation speaks about inequality, oppression, banking, religion, power, Israel/Palestine, and any other sensitive areas that cut close to the bone for the Jewish community.

If you want to wish people well over a Jewish festival, make sure you know a little something about it. For example, don’t use the image of a loaf of bread in a Passover post when the festival explicitly bans bread (it will be seen as superficial...)

L'Taken Antisemitism Training © Interrupting Antisemitism Calling Out • When we need to let someone know that their words or actions are unacceptable and will not be tolerated • When we need to interrupt in order to prevent further harm • Will likely feel hard and uncomfortable, but necessary • Allows us to hit the “pause” button and break the momentum

Ouch. I need to stop you there. That word/comment is harmful. I’m going to push back against that. Would you like to pick a different I disagree. I don’t see it that way word? because… Okay, I am having a strong reaction I don’t find that funny. I wonder if you’ve considered the to that and I'd like to let you know impact of your words? why. Hmmm.. I think you may want to think I want you to know how your com- That’s not our culture here. Those this one through a bit more. How ment just impacted me. aren’t our values. about we hit pause and speak about this later? Is sex/gender/gender identity/gen- It sounded like you just said ______. I feel obligated as your peer/col- der expression/race/class/ ethnicity/ Is that really what you meant? league/friend to tell you that your religion/ability/ immigration status/ comment wasn’t okay. body type/ marital status/ age/ pregnancy relevant to your point? How? Remember, it is a powerful thing for the target of oppression to hear these words from the mouth of an ally!

Calling In • When there is an opportunity to explore more deeply and come to a mutual sense of understanding • When we are seeking to grow and learn • When we want to help imagine different perspectives, possibilities, or outcomes • Provides for multiple perspectives and encourages shifts in thinking • Focused on reflection and response, not reaction • Is ​not​ just a suggestion (Don’t you think you should…?)

I’m curious. What do you mean by What was your intention when you What sort of impact do you think ____? said ____? How might the impact of your decision/comment/action might your words/actions differ from your have? intent? Is it possible that someone might How might your own comfort level, How is ____ different from ____? understand your words/actions assumptions, expectations, prior What is the connection between differently? How might someone else experiences be influencing your ____ and ____? experience what just happened? beliefs, decisions, process in this moment? How did you decide, determine, When did you start thinking/acting/ What would have to change in conclude ___? speaking this way? Why? order for ____? Why do you assume ____ to be What were you trying to achieve Do you know why I am stopping true? by doing ____? Is this the best way? you? Do you want to have a go at What other approaches have you thinking through how I might re- considered? spond? Remember to think about how to call out the behaviour while calling in the person

Adapted from Seed The Way & The Oregon Center for Educational Equity: What Did You Just Say? Responses to Racist Comments Collected from the Field & the School Reform Initiative Pocket Guide to Probing Questions & Seed The Way

L'Taken Antisemitism Training © INTROductory Reading List

As a next step introduction

• Understanding Antisemitism, Jews for Racial and Economic Justice (JFREJ) An Amerocentric guide to antisemitism by a NYC based collective advocating for economic and social change Jfrej.org/wp-content/ uploads/2017/11/JFREJ-Understanding-Antisemitism-November-2017-1.pdf

• The Past Didn’t Go Anywhere, April Rosenblum A 2007 pamphlet for left wing movements created by an American activist Archive.org/details/ThePastDidntGoAnywhere

• Strange Hate, Keith Kahn-Harris A British sociologist’s insight into how to approach tackling antisemitism as part of a broader anti-racist outlookAntisemitism on the left

• That’s Funny, You Don’t Look Antisemitic by Steven A. Cohen A very funny 1980s guide to the history and practises of antisemitism within the British left Libcom.org/files/thats_funny.pdf

• My Left Side Hurts more by Benji Lanyado Medium.com/@benjilanyado/my-left-side-hurts-more- 910b850ff70b

• Antisemitism and the Russian Revolution by Brendan McGeevor

• Socialist antisemitism and its discontents in England, 1884–98 A deep look at antisemitism within British socialism at the turn of the century Core.ac.uk/download/pdf/83960427.pdf

• Antisemitism here and now by Deborah Lipstadt This is a very accessible introduction to some ideas in antisemitism, framed as a series of letters between Professor Lipstadt and her students Jews and race

• The Colors of Jews by Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz A book designed to challenge assumptions about the Jewish community, by presenting the voices of Black Jews, Indian Jews, Sephardi Jews, Mizrahi Jews, and many other Jewish communities.

• How Jews Became White Folks and What That Says About Race in America by Karen Brodkin

• The Jew’s Body by Sander Gilman An examination of the historic tropes around Jews’ bodies

• The Invention of the Jewish Nose by Sara Lipton www.nybooks.com/daily/2014/11/14/invention-jewish-nose Antisemitism, white supremacy, and anti-black racism

• Skin in the Game by Eric K. Ward An exploration of why antisemitism is so foundational to white nationalism www.politicalresearch.org/2017/06/29/skin-in-the-game-how-antisemitism-animates-white-nationalism

• “Negroes are antisemitic because they are anti white” by James Baldwin Archive.nytimes.com/www. nytimes.com/books/98/03/29/specials/baldwin-antisem.html Antisemitism & Christianity

• Living in the Shadow of the Cross: Christian Hegemony by Paul Kivel A look at the idea of ‘Christian hegemony’ and its impact, including on antisemitism

• Jewish-Christian Relations 1000-1300 by Anna Sapir Abulafia This academic book details key centu- ries in western europe in the Christian development of antisemitic ideas and practices

L'Taken Antisemitism Training © THAT'S FUNNY YOU DON'T LOOK ANTISEMITIC by Steve cohen, 1984 How The Left Does Not Fight Anti‐Semitism

Left Modesty

There is one particular response from the Left, when presented with accusations of its own anti‐semitism, that is almost liturgical in its repetition. This is the vanity which leads not merely to protestations that the socialist movement has actually opposed anti‐semitism, but to the claim that it has consistently been in the vanguard of all such opposition. For instance, John Nolan (letters Socialist Challenge 1.1.81) made the modest claim that ʺin the struggle against all forms of oppression, including anti‐semitism, the I.M.G. and Socialist Challenge have proved themselves to be amongst the best of working class fightersʺ. The Stalinists have made a similar claim about their own organisations. Hyman Lumer in his preface to Lenin On the Jewish Question states that the official Communist Parties ʺhave been the most resolute fighters against all national and racial discrimination and oppressionʺ. The sect may change, but the catechism remains the same!

Enough has already been presented to reveal the misplaced arrogance of this. How could a socialist practice which has internalised so much anti‐semitism be in the forefront of resistance to it? However, it is relevant to go beyond this and to criticise much Left practice even on those occasions when it is apparently opposing anti‐semitism. The point is that this opposition often, at its best, severely underestimates anti‐semitism and, at its worst, is complicit in it by accepting its terms. Either way, it ultimately rests on a refusal to see anti‐ semitism as an ideology.

Complicity in Anti‐Semitism

There have been periods in this country, as elsewhere, when sections of the Left, far from fighting anti‐semitism have threatened to unleash pogroms against Jews. An article in Justice claimed that socialists

ʺhave no feelings against Jews as Jews, but as nefarious capitalists and poisoners of the wells of public information we denounce them. It would be easy enough to get up a capitalist Jew‐bait here in London if we wished to do soʺ (21.1.1893).

It is, incidentally, not insignificant that the medieval accusation of Jews poisoning the water wells reappears under a different guise in imperialist

85 Thatʹs Funny You Donʹt Look Anti‐Semitic England. Moreover the S.D.F, like many other ʹsocialistsʹ believed that pogroms were a prelude to an anti‐capitalist revolution. Thus Hyndman applauded popular attacks on Jews in Austria on the grounds that:

ʺThe attack upon Jews is a convenient cover for a more direct attack upon the great landlords and Christian capitalistsʺ (The Historical Basis of Socialism, 1883).

However, the reality is that even where the Left has purported to struggle against anti‐semitism it has frequently compromised itself with anti‐Jewish feelings.

For instance the most classic form of compromise is to appeal to anti‐semites to fight fascism! If Hyndman could call upon anti‐semites to destroy capitalism (as represented by Jews), then it is equally ʹlogicalʹ to call upon anti‐semites to fight fascism as a manifestation of capitalism. In 1937 the Left Book Club published a book by G. Sacks entitled The Jewish Question. This proclaimed:

ʺHate the Jew if you must but do not allow your hatred to make you the victim of the fascist who, on the plea that he also hates the Jew, makes you his accomplice in worse crimesʺ.

Sacks then went on to point out that what was wrong with fascism was not its attacks on the Jews but that these attacks were no guarantee of a better society, thus:

ʺIf fascism really meant the end of the class struggle, then the humiliation and destruction of sixteen million Jews would be worthwhile, for the ultimate benefit to humanity would transcend that of a small minority of people who would scarcely be missedʺ.

In other words the ʹexplanationʹ we have previously examined, that anti‐ semitism is just a series of ʹmistakesʹ, appears here in its ultimate form—namely as a total concession to anti‐semitic ideology.

It would be wrong to see this form of complicity as being confined to the Stalinist and social democratic tradition around the Left Book Club. Thus the Big Flame editorial of September 1982 actually stated that as a socialist response to the Israeli invasion of the Lebanon ʺit would be a serious error to participate in or help incite the emergence of a new wave of anti‐semitismʺ. The use of the word ʹerrorʹ implies that the question of unleashing pogroms is merely one of tactics.

86 Thatʹs Funny You Donʹt Look Anti‐Semitic The perverse logic of this is that if anti‐semitism acted as a break on the Israeli government then it would in some way be legitimate.

Even amongst those on the contemporary Left fighting fascism, there is occasionally a residual belief that Jews are somehow legitimate targets for popular hatred. For instance Ed Rosen in an article in Peace News (21.3.80) wrote that the Nazis used anti‐semitism in order ʺto break the power of a privileged Jewish economic communityʺ. In other words, German Jews were supposedly rich and powerful—so what else could they expect? They asked for it. Indeed, we have already seen that advocating assimilation, as an answer to anti‐semitism, itself rests on the assumption that there exists something actual and tangible in Jewish behaviour to which the anti‐semite is merely responding.

Denying The Significance Of The Material Consequences Of Anti‐ Semitism

Anti‐semitism is essentially a view of the world, an ideology, yet of course it does have material and atrocious consequences for Jews—witness the ʹfinal solutionʹ. However the Left has systematically under‐estimated these material consequences as can be seen in the following examples.

The holocaust is seen as unique and without any historical precedent. Thus Nigel Ward has stated that anti‐semitism did not exist in Eastern Europe until the penetration of capital in the last century (Socialist Challenge 2.10.82). He ignores centuries of pogroms, often sanctioned by the Orthodox churches, not the least of which were the atrocities perpetrated by Chmielnicki in 1648, when an estimated one million Jews were killed—only those accepting baptism being spared. Chmielnicki is still regarded in the Ukraine as a national hero. Similarly, Ward claims that the economic position of Jews in Western Europe was ʺthreatened by the development of early capitalismʺ after the eleventh century. Quite apart from the historical error of an assumed Jewish economic position—the word ʹthreatenedʹ suggests some minor material decline. The reality was the constant attacks on Jewish communities throughout the Crusades. These in fact were repeated shortly afterwards, during the period of the Black Death (1348‐9) when Jews were blamed in popular mythology for the plague. In Germany alone, over 200 communities were exterminated whilst attacks took place on a smaller scale in Poland, Catalonia and in the north of Italy.

The other side to the perverse view that the holocaust was without precedent, is the equally perverse notion that anti‐semitism disappeared with the holocaust.

87 Thatʹs Funny You Donʹt Look Anti‐Semitic Big Flame criticised those whom it claims ʺhark back constantly to the history of anti‐semitismʺ (October 1982). In other words anti‐semitism exists only in ʹhistoryʹ—though Big Flame does have the grace to admit that the ʹtiniest elementsʹ might still be around today. This is not simply reactionary. It is ahistorical and seems to be based on the liberal and social democratic myth that anti‐semitism was defeated by the bourgeoisie in World War Two ... as though this were somehow seen by the Allies as a war against anti‐semitism. The same politics occurred in the propaganda slogan of the Anti‐Nazi League in the middle of the 1970s—ʺYesterday it was the Jews, today it is the blacksʺ, This imagined that somehow anti‐black racism didnʹt exist at the time of pre‐war fascism and that anti‐semitism disappeared after, and as a result of, imperialist war.

There is another particularly insidious aspect to this constant under‐estimation of anti‐semitism. This is the appalling attitude by the Left that Jews will have to have one foot in the grave before it will respond. By this time, of course, it will be too late anyway. Thus Uri Davies (Peace News 26.1.79) was anxious to stress that

ʺGiven the current social and political circumstances prevalent in Britain, anti‐semitism does not feature as a prominent element in British racism ... Jews in Britain are not the first nor the worst victims of racism. There is no denial that in future, given certain social and political developments, racism directed against Jews could figure more prominently in British society. But this is a contingent possibility and not a present development nor a likely development in the near futureʺ.

It is not claimed that Jews are either the ʹfirstʹ or the ʹworstʹ victims of racism— and such was certainly not claimed in the article to which this was a reply. However, it is remarkable that any attempt to draw attention to the existence of anti‐semitism can result in such slanderous assertions. The message appears to be that there is a queue or hierarchy of victims, and Jews will have to wait till they get to the front before anyone will take any serious political notice. Uri Davies seems to have a touching faith in the present social order. He should remember the misassessment of August Bebel who, in spite of his active opposition to anti‐semitism, said in 1906 that ʺIt is comforting that in Germany it will never have a chance to assert a decisive influence on the life of state or societyʺ (quoted by Silberner in an article on German Social Democracy, Historia Judaica 1953).

88 Thatʹs Funny You Donʹt Look Anti‐Semitic Paradoxically, although the reality of Jewish oppression is often denied, the Left still persists in defining the Jew as a victim, but in a purely abstract way. However, this status is a surrogate one to play us off against different groups. A coarse example was the statement by Ken Livingstone, the Labour leader of the Greater London Council, that the suffering of the Irish at the hands of the English was worse that the Nazi holocaust of European Jewry. Who are statements like this supposed to help? Certainly not the Irish, who have an autonomous existence, and donʹt require their oppression to be validated by a league table with other groups. Neither do they help the Jewish people who are in any event being constantly told that their oppression is near the bottom of any league table.

Even when certain socialists claim that the Left has constantly fought anti‐ semitism, they have a totally restricted meaning of what anti‐semitism is. They ignore and leave unopposed the anti‐semitism of daily life on which fascism is ultimately built. For the Left, anti‐semitism only seems to exist, if at all, when matters get to the stage of organised violence on a mass scale. There is absolutely no recognition of the profoundly anti‐semitic culture which underlies these physical manifestations. It is as though major physical violence against Jews is an aberration which springs out of nowhere. There is a reverse side to all this. This is that anti‐semitism without physical violence is deemed simply not to exist. Cultural imperialism is just ignored. As has been emphasised, the Left actively advocates assimilationism.

Denying The Significance Of Anti‐Semitism As An Ideology

Central to the socialist compromise with anti‐semitism, and the underestimation of its material consequences, is the failure to perceive anti‐semitism as an ideological force existing in daily life. It has already been emphasised in the previous chapter how anti‐semitism is wrongly seen as a series of ʹmistakesʹ made by its proponents. There is a reverse side, though, to this analysis. Anti‐ semitism is viewed as a series of tactical manoeuvres by the bourgeoisie designed to mislead the workers. The conventional wisdom of the Left is that ʹpogromsʹ are simply a diversionary tactic by the ruling class: for tactical considerations the ruling class spreads false propaganda about Jews in order to induce erroneous perceptions in the rest of the workers. It is often presented as openly as this. For instance, the Daily Worker, then the paper of the Communist Party, stated that anti‐semitism was a vehicle ʺto divert the attack upon the capitalist class as a whole into an attack upon a section of that class—the Jewish section (2.3.1933). In similar vein and in the same period, A.M. Wall, the

89 Thatʹs Funny You Donʹt Look Anti‐Semitic Secretary of the London Trades Council, in addressing a meeting called by the Jewish Peopleʹs Council in Londonʹs East End, said

ʺAnti‐semitism has always been used for the same purpose—in order to give the masses an enemy to attack so they wonʹt discover the real enemyʺ (Jewish Chronicle 16.10.36).

This analysis permeates every single part of the Left and can easily be found today. Thus Big Flame in its editorial of September 1982 explained anti‐semitism by asserting that Jews are used as ʹscape‐goatsʹ in periods of crisis. Newsline, as has already been seen, described anti‐semitism as a ʹtrump‐cardʹ which the Tories have ʹup their sleevesʹ. In other words, anti‐semitism is viewed as some form of magic trick that is kept hidden until a period of capitalist crisis, and is then used to divide the workers—who apparently have not been previously divided by it.

This is a nonsense. People are already divided by reactionary ideas of all kinds. Anti‐semitism exists in daily life. It does not need a conspiracy of the bourgeoisie to convince people. Anti‐semitism may be, in Marxist terms, ruling class ideology, in that it arguably serves the interests of any particular governing class. However, it has also developed a relative and extremely strong autonomy over the last two millennia. It is genuinely believed by all classes.

One of the reasons why Nazism was so successfully expansionist right through Europe and into parts of the USSR, was because there was a large measure of popular support for the anti‐semitism that was explicitly central to it. For instance, Polish Jewry was under increasing attack in the years prior to the Nazi take‐over, and at least one village to which Jews returned after the Nazi defeat suffered massacres in 1945. The myth that Jews went like sheep to the slaughter is parallel to the myth that the mass of the local populace throughout Europe was either ignorant or immobilised through fear. The holocaust had popular support in many places in the occupied countries. Indeed, complicity in the ʹfinal solutionʹ is now a national scandal in France today.

However, just as people like G. Sacks tried to win anti‐semites to the anti‐fascist cause, so today some of the Left seek to deny the popular appeal of the Nazi anti‐ semitism. They do this by disputing the centrality of anti‐semitism to Nazi theory. Thus Ed Rosen in his article in Peace News wrote that anti‐semitism was a ʺsideshowʺ with Nazism. He also stated that ʺboth before and after Hitler came to power anti‐semitism was never a mass movement in Germanyʺ and that it

90 Thatʹs Funny You Donʹt Look Anti‐Semitic occurred only ʺperiodicallyʺ under the Nazis. The assumption is that the Nazis did not believe their own anti‐semitic ideology. It was just a tactic—and not an important one—that could be turned on and off like a tap. This is almost the ʹreductio ad absurdamʹ of the denial of the mass appeal of the ideology of anti‐ semitism as an explanation of the world. To present this ideology as a tactical ʹinventionʹ by fascist demagogues to divide the workers, simply misunderstands the depths of its roots.

Moreover, behind this lies a completely cynical amoralism which exists today with respect to the struggle by Left groups against anti‐black racism. The suggestion is that racism of any kind is not to be opposed for its own sake, but because it divides the class. Socialist ideologues are apparently immune to it by definition. Within the class, it is simply an ʹerrorʹ. The logical conclusion of this is that Jewish people, along with everyone else, should not be fighting anti‐ semitism because it is anti‐Jewish, but because it divides the class! Indeed, A.M. Wall actually did say that in the struggle against fascism ... ʺIt was necessary for the Jews not to talk of themselves as Jewsʺ as this was somehow divisive. There is another logical conclusion to this: where there are no Jews, or where all Jews have been massacred and there is no longer a danger of class division, then presumably anti‐semitism is permissible.

91 Thatʹs Funny You Donʹt Look Anti‐Semitic Paper copies can be ordered by sending $2 for postage & printing (free to prisoners) to: The Past Didn’t Go Anywhere, PO Box 42543, Phila., PA Two Jews, a crumbling empire, and a struggling 19101 (USA) - or see the website to send it via PayPal instead. With ques- tions or comments, e-mail [email protected]. resistance movement walk into a bar...

DOWNLOAD THIS FOR FREE AT www.thepast.info For people who have committed themselves to fundamental social

change, the situation we’re stuck in with antisemitism is like a bad joke. THE PAST DIDN'T GOANYWHERE Feel free to copy and distribute this...

You can sell it, if you charge $2 (plus shipping) or less. From one side, progressive and radical activists and scholars are being attacked by APRIL ROSENBLUM, 2007 by organized campaigns to brand us antisemites. In particular, it’s virtually impossi- ble to speak out critically about Israel without being charged with antisemitism.

A few notes... At the same time, we face real currents of unchallenged anti-Jewish oppres- The word “Left” is used here to describe radical and progressive social sion in our movements and the world. This endangers Jews, corrupts our political justice movements and the individual activists who take up social justice integrity, and sabotages our ability to create the effective resistance our times demand. struggles. You don't have to identify with this specific term -- it's a useful word here mainly because it's short. The Left has long procrastinated on taking on anti-Jewish oppression. In part we’ve had trouble because it looks different from the oppressions we understand, The word “antisemitism” will be used here specifically to refer to which enforce inferiority on oppressed groups to disempower them. Anti-Jewish oppression against Jews. (For background on why the term works this way, oppression, on the other hand, can make its target look extremely powerful. see p. 9.) This definition should not be used to downplay the ongoing oppression against Arab people, who, like Jews, have been labeled Antisemitism’s job is to make ruling classes invisible. It protects ruling class Semites. An alternative, more accurate term is “anti-Jewish oppression.” power structures, diverting anger at injustice toward Jews instead. But it doesn’t have It’s useful for activists to gain experience with both terms. to be planned out at the top. It serves the same ends, whether enshrined in law or insti- tutionalized only in our minds; whether it's state policy, popular 'common sense,' or A glossary is located at the end of this pamphlet. acts of grassroots movements like our own. See footnotes at www.thepast.info. It's always a real struggle for the Left to Dedicated to successfully tackle oppression within its own ranks. But when we do it, our movements Dr. Oscar Klier, gain, every time, from the deeper understand- founder and ex-Rector of the Universidad de Congreso in Argentina, mentor and friend; ings that emerge. To start the process this time, whose life’s dream was destroyed in 1998 by an organized antisemitic campaign, we need some basic information about what and who is still seeking justice. anti-Jewish oppression is and how to counter and Cherie Brown, it. But it has to come from a perspective of justice for all people, not from opportunis- whose work to analyze anti-Jewish oppression was mentioned by so many tic attempts to slander or censor social justice efforts that are gaining strength. interviewees as a source of inspiration and belief in themselves, whether they had worked with her closely, or seen one article by her long ago. In writing this, I do not want activists to put aside the vital issues we already work on to switch to this one. No battle today for peoples’ basic human rights can afford to FIRST EDITION, APRIL 2007. (4/24/07 revision) lose our energy and commitment. What’s called for is for us to integrate radical analysis of anti-Jewish oppression into the work we already do. This was written and researched by April Rosenblum and helped by many small donations from supportive individuals. Special thanks to Judy Rosenblum, Joel Rosenblum, Josef Kardos, all of the "If Not Together" interviewees and advisors, and dedicated readers of early May the ideas here strengthen us for all the tasks ahead. drafts of “The Past;” to Kate Zaidan, whose generosity of heart and mind went beyond the call of duty in ways I won’t forget; and to my friends, across many borders. April Rosenblum 1 Sometimes people on the Left think the oppression of Jews stopped being a problem Ukraine, August 2005: Halimi’s was only the most publicized of periodic street after the Holocaust. That’s easy to think if what you know comes mostly from the U.S., attacks on Jews. Visibly recognizeable Jews were most vulnerable, with frequent where Jews have been unusually safe. To really measure whether antisemitism has attacks on rabbis near synagogues. When rabbinic student Mordechai Molozhenov was power, you have to watch the global picture. Take this small sampling: beaten, stabbed and sent into a coma by skinheads shouting anti-Jewish slurs, top Ukrainian police officials declared it a case of mere 'hooliganism,' not antisemitism. Thirty rabbis begged for action, saying, "Calls to violence against Judaism and Jews Anti-Jewish agitation in the halls of power: are published in the press, freely distributed and sold. On the walls of synagogues, Russia, January 2005: 20 parliament members and 500 prominent citizens asked the buildings, bus stops and along the road, anti-Semitic symbols appear more and more often." country's Prosecutor General to ban all Jewish organizations in Russia. Calling Judaism anti-Christian, extremist and inhumane, the group cited the medieval myth that Jews rit- Argentina, July 2005: In Latin America's largest Jewish community, where the coun- ually murder Christian babies as fact, and said, "the whole democratic world is under try’s only major terror attacks have targeted Jewish sites, more news emerged about financial and political control of the international Jewry." the bombing of the country's central Jewish community center in 1994, which killed 86 and injured 300. The govern- Malaysia, October ment had resisted investigat- 2003: Addressing the ing, and police and officials are world’s Muslim lead- antisemitism is still a world problem widely suspected of permitting ers, prime minister or aiding in the bombing. In Mahathir Mohamad declared that "the Jews run this world by proxy. They get others to July, the president admitted that officials had for ten years been actively destroying fight and die for them," and "have now gained control of the most powerful countries." evidence from the case. To this day, every suspect has gone free. Not hard to imagine in a country where eleven years earlier, the military dictatorship that killed 30,000 peo- Iran, December 2005: President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared the Holocaust a ple disproportionately targeted Jews for arrest and disappearance, and reserved special myth created by Jews. When a Right-wing Danish newspaper sponsored cartoons that torture for Jewish prisoners. demeaned Islam, demonstrators in a government-supported protest proclaimed the Zionists had pushed Denmark to it. Hamshahri, Iran's state-funded, widest-read news- paper, sponsored an international cartoon contest to encourage debate on "alleged his- In 2007, what is anti-Jewish oppression? torical events like the Holocaust.” In a conflict where Jews played no part, it was Jews It’s centuries of institutional anti-Jewish doctrines that get catalyzed in public who were fair game. when the mood hits. It's a perverse form of street cred: a political consensus that cross- HERE LIVES A es boundaries, used by mainstream politicians and rebel forces alike who expose “the Street-level violence, ¡JJEWESS! Jews” to prove they will speak truth to power. Even in the U.S., where Jews have had WE DON’T WANT 200 years of exceptional physical safety, it’s a background hum: be it rumors placing high-level denials HER IN THE Jews or Israelis behind 9/11, the hit film that restaged the “Passion plays” which NEIGHBORHOOD France, January 2006: sparked annual Easter massacres of Jews in medieval Europe, or theories arising amid Ilan Halimi, a 23 year-old growing public disenchantment with the Iraq war that it was fought for Jewish or Jew from a working-class Israeli interests. suburb of Paris, was The point is not that the sky is falling, or that the Holocaust is on its way back; in stalked and kidnapped by a fact, several other oppressed groups are in more imminent danger as we speak. But a gang that assumed, because status quo in which anti-Jewish theories are ‘common sense’ in countries around the he was Jewish, he would be Fed up with anti-Jewish harrassment in Buenos Aires, artist Mariana world is a serious thing. It’s not an issue the Left can afford to ‘put off’ until later. rich. Halimi was then tor- Schapiro photographed the graffiti she tured to death over the awoke to on her door , and put it on the The past didn't go anywhere. Antisemitism didn’t somehow naturally disappear course of three weeks. web for everyone to face. (Mar. ‘05) after its worst outbreak. Our whole activist lives are based on the understanding that Residents from throughout oppression doesn't go away by itself. You have to take action. Whole peoples’ move- the building joined in with ments have to, collectively, for a real shift to occur. When was there a mass effort by the gang in a game-like atmosphere of torture. Halimi's mother warned French police radical movements to educate ourselves and the world and overturn antisemitism? of several recent kidnapping attempts on local Jews, but they told her to ignore the daily threats to kill her son, and the orders to collect ransom from synagogues. After Oh. Well...then when will there be? 2 Halimi's murder, the government resisted acknowledging it as an anti-Jewish killing. 3 “But Jews are one of the most well-off groups in this country!” Over its history, anti-Jewish oppression has shifted forms between religious, racial and political persecution based on the times. But some beliefs have become fairly consistent: How could Jews be oppressed ?! - Jews are mysterious, or act secretly behind the scenes What comes to mind when you think of oppression? Poverty? Mass imprison- - Jews have abnormal or supernatural amounts of power ment? Exploitation of a group’s labor? Theft of a country’s resources? If you expect every oppression to look like those things, it may be hard to spot this one. The oppres- - Jews are disloyal to, or seek the destruction of, the society they live in sion of Jews often looks very different. But when you know the signs, you can see how - Jews are disproportionately the cause of harm in the world the oppression of Jews today is alive and working the way it has for centuries. - Jews are unlike the rest of humanity (at best); or inherently evil, or tied to the devil (at worst) A DEFINITION: Antisemitism, or anti-Jewish oppression, is the system of ideas R - Jews are wealthy or greedy passed down through a society's institutions to enable scapegoating of Jews, and IGHT

the ideological or physical targeting of Jews that results from that. classicalimageofJewishpower. :A - Jews are the “brains” behind the action The oppression of Jews has a lot in common with the oppressions that all In a world that’s very difficult to change, anti- kinds of other people are struggling with today. Racism, classism, sexism, homo- semitism makes things seem easy to solve. It lets us fix phobia and all oppressions serve twin functions: they control, endanger and disem- our gaze on an imagined group of greedy, powerful power the targeted group, and at the same time, they help to keep a wider system of Jews at the root of the world’s problems, and moves exploitation and inequality running smoothly. With antisemitism, it works like this: our eyes right past the systems that actually keep injustice in place: capitalism, weapons dealers, oil - Jews are isolated, especially from other exploited groups - people who might companies, you name it... and the overwhelmingly normally be expected to team up with them and defend them in times of danger. non-Jewish ruling classes who benefit from it all. - Other oppressed groups get manipulated out of identifying and fighting the sources of their exploitation, instead being encouraged to channel their anger at Jews. - Jews are targeted for violence or other danger, whether intentionally by local (And what exactly are Jews, anyway?) rulers, or spontaneously at the grassroots of society. Jews are a globally-dispersed, multi-ethnic culture which is linked by a shared history of diaspora, and a religion (Judaism). Many Jews practice the - In hopes of gaining safety, Jews are pressured to cooperate with rulers, to silence religion; others are ethnic, secular (=non-religious) Jews. themselves and to not rise up against the powerful, for fear of greater targeting. Within the culture are many Jewish ethnic groups, such as: Mizrachim (communities In the basic ways that it plays out, antisemitism is not so different from the of Jews who never left the Middle East after ancient Israel was destroyed by conquest, but ways that many diaspora communities get scapegoated throughout the world. settled in regions such as today’s Iraq, Iran, Syria, etc.), Ashkenazim (whose ancestors made their way to Europe and founded communities there), Sephardim (whose ancestors Every oppression is also unique in some ways. In antisemitism’s case, it’s how formed communities in Spain and Portugal before being dispersed worldwide by the the oppression was born: Early Christian leaders portrayed the Jews as the killers of Inquisition), the Cochin Jews of India, Beta Israel of Ethiopia, Ibo Jews of Nigeria, and Jesus, an idea that got institutionalized when, in every land Roman imperialism con- many more. Within each ethnicity lie plenty of differences as well. quered and converted, a popular conception was spread of Jews as the “killers of Still other Jews share the religion but not the family lineage, and through conversion God” in league with secret, diabolical forces. Later, as European societies modern- have become part of the Jewish people. Although orthodox religious law defines a Jew as ized and grew more secular, images remained of Jews as the source of ultimate evil. one who has a Jewish mother or has had an orthodox conversion, many Jews reject this - believing, for instance, that a person who has some Jewish ancestors and who identifies Antisemitism as we know it, with its images of special, evil Jewish power, with and cares about the culture, is a Jew. began as a Christian, European phenomenon; though Jews faced mistreatment in Due to how often in history Jewish communities have had to hide their identities to nd Muslim lands, it was a more generic 2 -class citizenship applied to all non-Muslims. escape persecution, there are also millions of people globally with unrecognized Jewish However, with European colonization and inroads the Nazis made, European-style ancestry. In recent years, relative safety for Jews has allowed more open conversation antisemitic theories have increasingly also entered Arab, Asian and other societies. 4 about Jewish origins, and a growing number of communities are “coming out” as Jews. 5 Often, people hear the word ‘antisemitism’ and they shut down. Arabs and Muslims worldwide are experienc- They say, “You talk about antisemitism like it’s just about Jews... ing a seriously dangerous time. What does this mean, for talking about the threats facing Jews? “ ” That two oppressions But Arabs are Semites! can happen at the same time. That's right: the term ‘Semite’ has gotten used on both Arabs and ABOVE: Sign outside U.S. church; Maybe this should be obvious. Florida, 2005. BELOW: Young Muslim Jews.* And Arabs and Muslims - plus groups within them, like women protest the French laws, 2004. Palestinians - are targets of intense violence and oppression. But it is hard to grasp, and even harder to know how to act on. Protesting forced registration in the U.S. - After 60 years of fostering dictators and repressing Every oppression is different, democratic movements in Arab countries, the U.S. and every oppressed group now has made it clear to Arab citizens worldwide that deserves our time and commit- they are subject to U.S. bombing and occupation at ment to learning what their spe- will. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians have cific experience is like, and been killed without the U.S. so much as counting the how we can best support their dead; hundreds of prisoners tortured; and the U.S. struggle for liberation. calls it a gift: democracy for the benighted Arabs.

- U.S. Arabs and Muslims since 9/11 have faced A term we didn't freely choose: forced registration, thousands of detentions without Iraqi families protest and pray "Antisemitism" was a word popularized in 1879 by someone who was nei- outside of Abu Ghraib prison. charges, deportation, and popular violence. ther Arab nor Jewish, Wilhelm Marr. From the beginning it was chosen as a chic, new scientific word to show that Jews were an inferior race (not a religion that they - Israel continues its violent 40-year occupation could convert out of), and to replace the word Jew-hatred (Judenhass) so that Jew- of Palestinian land illegally held since 1967. As haters could enjoy sounding more sophisticated. Israel today annexes even more West Bank land, the U.S. government funds it, cheered by Marr and his colleagues used the term antisemites for themselves as something America's powerful Christian Right. Meanwhile, to be proud of. They built an organization to advocate discrimination against Jews, Israel responds to Hizbollah by bombing the Antisemites' League. When Marr and his movement designed this term to Lebanon’s infrastructure to pieces, killing more degrade a whole people, they couldn't care less that they were using it inaccurately than 1,000 and forcing more than one million by designating it for Jews specifically. Lebanese people into exile. Although Jews didn't get to choose the term for their oppression -and - And Europe, where the legacy began, with oppressed groups rarely do- over years being attacked by it, they have accepted Crusader massacres of Muslims and Jews from the term to describe the historical experience of being targeted for being Jews. Europe to the Middle East. Modern times There isn't really one oppression that targets all those who were labeled brought 150 years of European colonialism to “Semites” in a similar way.** But there is a larger oppression that both groups expe- Arab lands, and immigrants from the former rience: Orientalism. From the Chinese Exclusion Act and the Third Reich to the colonies have suffered decades of racist violence Red Scare and the War on Terror, the "West" has historically targeted Asians, and scapegoating in Europe. New French laws Arabs and Jews as mysterious, dishonestly and manipulatively intelligent, overly purportedly aimed at pacifying tensions have sensual, warlike, and barbarically loyal to their 'tribe' instead of to humankind. now outlawed Muslim dress in schools. Palestinian photographer Nasser Ishtaya All this has worsened the burden already faced by many * It is somewhat misleading to distinguish between Arabs and Jews. Millions of Jews are of Arab (& Persian) holds his newborn daughter, Dunya. She descent, and experience the profiling other Arabs are subject to, as well as racism in the Jewish community. died after Israeli roadblocks Arabs and Muslims who struggle with severe repres- 6 stalled her ambulance for 3 hours. sion and inequality under their own governments. ** The term ‘Semite” was itself an invention of European Orientalists,imposed on Jews and Arabs. 7 Meet the Amazing, Disappearing Oppression For centuries, Jewish communities could be eful Jew” expelled from European towns at any time, The “Us for any reason and made homeless. Permission Anti-Jewish oppression has been around a long time - it became government to stay lasted only as long as an area’s rulers saw local Jews as ‘useful.’ Ruling practice in Christian society about 1,700 years ago and only stopped having official classes developed and passed down strategies to make good use of Jews’ vulnerability. Vatican approval in 1965. But when anti-Jewish oppression isn’t at its most bru- Today, it’s important for us to look for the ways these strategies are still being used. tal, it can be really hard to see. How come this oppression can seem so invisible? the “middleman” - Rulers used Jews for “mid- the Court Jew - History is full of Partly it’s that it allows Jews success. Many oppressions rely on keeping a dlemen” jobs that put Jews in direct contact with the unpopular kings who managed to save targeted group of people poor, uneducated, designated non-white, or otherwise 'at the exploited, disgruntled peasantry, shielding rulers their asses by turning the crowds against bottom.’ Anti-Jewish oppression doesn’t depend on that. Although at many times it has from the backlash for their unjust policies. A peasant a trusty (but disposable) Court Jew. As a kept Jews in poverty or designated non-white, these have been “optional” features. might live a lifetime without seeing the nobleman king’s agent, a Court Jew might gain Because the point of anti-Jewish oppression is to keep a Jewish face in front, so that who decided her fate; it was Jews were the face of great personal privilege, even some Jews, instead of ruling classes, become the target for peoples’ rage, it works even more power at her door collecting taxes and rent, Jews power. But when problems arose, rulers counted on being able to divert mass smoothly when Jews are allowed some success, and can be perceived as the ones “in who seemed in control, and Jews who faced the vio- lence when peasants in poverty decided to resist. blame and violence to the Court Jew. charge” by other oppressed groups. the buffer zone - Since Jews needed special the “pressure valve” - Only a few Partly it’s that it moves in cycles. Because it can allow Jews to ‘move up,’ permission to live in European areas, many might be tax collectors or Court Jew. But all antisemitism is cyclical: Attacks come in waves; but each time things calm down and rulers took advantage of them by settling them of an area’s Jews were a ruler’s handy tar- Jews are able to blend in or succeed in society again, it gives the appearance that anti- in the areas most vulnerable to military attack, or get: When the economy or other conditions semitism is 'over.' In some of the most famous examples of anti-Jewish expulsion and where restless subjects were likely to rebel. For became unbearable, Jewish homes provid- mass murder (ie, medieval Spain or modern Germany), just prior to the attacks, Jews the privilege of a home, Jews had to accept their ed a whole neighborhood where gentile appeared to be one of society’s most successful, comfortable, well-integrated minorities. role as the population that could be sacrificed. masses could riot and let off steam.

In addition, much developing revolutionary theory saw the groups that mattered in cre- Internalized Oppression ating social change as the industrial laborers or peasants. But European Jews, having Another factor that keeps anti-Jewish oppression under wraps is internalized been excluded from many traditional trades, often didn’t fit neatly into those categories. oppression: the false negative views that members of oppressed groups come to believe From both directions, Jews learned we didn’t matter; our only meaningful role in about ourselves and our people, and the ways that we act in the world to accomodate our changing the world would be supporting other peoples’ struggles; in making ourselves oppression as normal or acceptable, instead of challenging it. useful. All this has compounded the biggest piece of internalized antisemitism: After centuries of experiencing other people not coming to our defense when we were target- Internalized oppression affects all oppressed groups. The form it takes depends on ed by violence and persecution, Jews have internalized the idea that there’s no hope of each group’s history. For instance, on an individual level, Jewish people - especially getting other people to stand with us. men - often perceive themselves as physically weak. We were legally banned from being allowed to carry weapons for substantial periods under Christian and Muslim rule. I know what antisemitism For Jews who struggle for social justice, European society excluded us from mainstream professions (farming, etc.) that strength- can be and do, when we that means we often stay quiet about anti- ened the body. We were literally unable to protect ourselves and our families from mass Jewish oppression: We learn to fight in sup- violence and rape. Jewish people - especially women - often feel disgust about our- internalize it. Antisemitism port of other groups without requesting the selves and our bodies, because, as the main racial ‘Other’ in Europe, European society humiliates, isolates, and solidarity we, ourselves, need. and popular culture created its images of what was ugly and disgusting based on our Jewish faces, and its fantasies of what our bodies looked like. silences us; mutes our loud For Jewish communities, it means we lose proud Jewish energy. How can sight of building a strategy for our libera- Our political decisions are also affected. Historical attitudes toward Jews taught tion by finding allies in other grassroots us to believe our own struggle was not worthwhile. Gentile European intellectuals, we fight injustice powerfully communities. Instead, we depend on those in including thinkers who heavily influenced the Left, like Hegel, taught that Jews were a if we fear our power? power, hoping that if we are useful to them, people ‘outside’ of history; prominent theories held that because Jews had no land of they will protect us. At times that leads us 8 our own, we were a deformed group without a role to play in history and revolution. - Melanie Kaye /Kantrowitz to cooperate in the oppression of others. 9 Let's look at an example of how antisemitism works. If you liked COINTELPRO, you’ll love In the 1980s, as agribusiness gobbled up more and more profits, family farms across the Midwest failed. With farmers in desperate straits, white the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. supremacist groups stepped in and saved the day by organizing relief. Along with Remember COINTELPRO, the US government's covert campaign to wipe aid, they provided farmers with vital information: It was "Jewish bankers" who out the most promising movements of the '50s, '60s and '70s? It used strategic were at fault for the farm crisis, and that's who poor, white Americans would have rumors, forged letters and other tactics to successfully divide and destroy vital parts to target for a real end to their problems. of the Black Power movement, the American Indian Movement, and others. I couldn't help but think of this while walking the streets of Argentina, a coun- The Protocols of the Elders of Zion was the same thing, 60 years before. A try that collapsed after drowning in debt to the IMF, where amazing social move- forged text claiming to be minutes from a secret meeting of powerful Jews, it was ments have blossomed in response to crisis, but also where graffiti throughout circulated by officers of Russia's Czarist secret police, who were worried about the Buenos Aires proclaims, "IMF = .....Jews." Sometimes you want to say, "Pssst! It's growing revolutionary movement in Russia. Knowing how much of the movement's not Jews... It’s capitalism." grassroots momentum was coming from Jews, and knowing how easily they could That's the nature of anti-Jewish oppression: To divide the masses if they kindled already-existing antisemitism, police agents plagia- cover up the roots of injustice. To make people think rized another author’s work of fiction and rewrote it as the imaginary proceedings they've figured out who's really pulling the strings. This of a secret Jewish planning meeting for world domination. The Protocols, in distri- is one of the biggest reasons why it's important for social bution since around 1903, describe their plan to take over the world through commu- justice movements to figure out and confront anti-Jewish nism, capitalism, immorality - all possible angles. In fact, it’s from this document oppression, for the movement's own sake: because anti- that the modern version of the myth of Jewish world domination got its start. Jewish oppression is designed as a way to keep people “FMI= Judios,” July 2005. from understanding where the power lies. And it works. Experienced activists will caution you not to assume COINTELPRO’s tactics ever ended. Well, you needn't even wonder about the Protocols. They are being put to use around the world: in some countries taught as state-sanctioned truth, but sold It's also why you'll see more manifestations of LEFT: Graffiti, anti-Jewish oppression popping up as social jus- Buenos Aires: worldwide, and bought by record numbers of people. But the gravest insult to tice movements around the world grow stronger, “Kirchner activists is that this fraud, created with the specific intent to destroy activists and move- Fucking Jew ments like ourselves, is parroted by some of our very own colleagues, in our own spaces. and more people come to believe that radical of the IMF.” change is necessary: People are seeking ways to Kirchner, liberate themselves and trying to identify who has Argentina’s president, is RIGHT: One of the anti-Jewish flyers that made the rounds at the caused the injustice around them. not Jewish. U.N.’s World Conference Against Racism in Durban, Aug. ‘01. 11 And, though it’s painful to acknowledge, antisemitism is already here in our movements.

The Adbusters magazine issue that ran a list of 50 The radical U.S. artist, whose posters fill the anti- prominent neo-cons and proudly exposed its inves- globalization movement, who created an entry The examples tigation of which of them were Jewish, marking about Palestine for Iran's Holocaust-denial car- range from the each Jew with a symbol. toon contest. high-pprofile... The World Conference Against Racism in 2001, NOTE: In this pamphlet, I have chosen, where possible, not where activists, in the name of solidarity with to show peoples’ faces or use activists’ and organizations’ names. First, many perpetuate anti-Jewish behavior unin- Palestinians, handed out virulently anti-Jewish fly- tentionally; second, our goal should be not to shift blame 10 ers and caricatures of demonic, money-hungry Jews. to individuals, but to deal with the whole pattern. RIGHT: List published by Adbusters with the article, “Why ...to the everyday: Won’t Anyone Say They Are Jewish?” (March/April 2004) Not really - because it's not so new. Unfortunately, antisemitism hasn’t just been a tool of elites. Radicals and resistance The activist filmmaker, welcomed by KPFA radio and La Peña movements have taken part in it at many times in history. Check out a few examples: Cultural Center for her work on Palestinian rights, who sells videos on how Jews have designed everything from Marxism to - Some of the most important early figures in the Left perpetuated antisemitism. Neo-Conservatism to covertly advance their own interests, pub- Anarchist forefather Pierre Proudhon’s treatises on capitalism used antisemitic imagery lishes articles on Jewish exaggeration of the Holocaust, and that calls to mind fascist theory more than modern-day anarchism. Karl Marx, in an early argues for quotas to limit Jews in journalism. debate against an antisemitic colleague, made use of virulently racist images of Jews, painting a detailed picture of Jews as collectively greedy, soul-less and loyal only to The economic justice organization that shows a video which pur- money,* and insulted opponents with antisemitic and racist jibes in his private writings. ports to explain wealth inequality -- but instead focuses largely on the Rothschilds* and paints major (gentile) financiers and whole - In the 1880s, leading radicals Jewish kids nations as mere pawns of a devious Jewish family. and socialist newspapers in Russia encouraged Russian killed in a 1905 The anti-police brutality demonstration where an invited commu- pogrom; Yekat- peasants engaging in pogroms erinoslav, Russia. nity group calls for Jews and queers to be killed, and no one speaks (mass violence against Jewish out -- not the demo's leaders, not any members of the audience. towns). Narodnik intellectuals wrote that anti-Jewish pogroms The statements made in public meetings and on Indymedia, to lit- were a first step toward real tle or no critical response, that the genocide in Darfur is an act of anti-capitalist consciousness, the Zionists, and that efforts to get people to fight against the geno- and should be celebrated. cide are ploys by the Zionists to distract attention from Palestine. - In WW2, as armed Jewish resisters fought back against the Nazis and Eastern The comments one grows numb to: how we don't get media cover- Europeans resisted the German occupation, significant numbers of gentile fighters age because the Jews, or the Zionists, control the media... how the acted out anti-Jewish oppression at the Jews fighting beside them - refusing to team D.A. who's destroying this community is, by the way, Jewish...and up in battle, even murdering Jews as they sought hiding places in their vicinity. so on. - In the early 20th century, growing Arab self-determination movements (including But the number of Leftists with real anti-Jewish beliefs is tiny. What Arab Jews) struggled to wrest independence from their European occupiers. But with has the bigger impact is not those individual Leftists who promote anti- Hitler's rise, key anti-colonial forces sought to bolster their anti-British resistance by Jewish beliefs, but the way that institutionally, people and organizations bonding with the Nazi regime. Some, like Iraq's Rashid Ali al-Kaylani, integrated on the Left are so silent, uncomfortable, defensive, and even accusato- antisemitic rhetoric, and several Arab Jewish communities suffered massacres. Anti- ry when someone brings concerns about antisemitism up. colonial governments came to power, but instead of bringing the pan-Arab equality of which so many had dreamt, many used Israeli actions as an excuse to target their It's the eye-rolls, insults or changes of subject when someone raises anti- indigenous Jewish populations. Facing violence and scapegoating, hundreds of thou- semitism in a meeting or event...The refusals to include antisemitism on the list of sands of Jews fled - often stripped of their property and sometimes, forcibly expelled. oppressions a coalition stands against...Our correct work to prevent war on Iran, but our dead silence about the antisemitism Iran's leaders are promoting to the world... Nor is Leftist avoidance, denial and silence new. Critics have suggested that incidents like these on the Left For years, proud radicals dismissed charges of anti-Jewish oppression in the mean there’s a “new antisemitism” afoot. USSR. People raising concerns were ridiculed as bourgeois or accused of being anti-Communist propagandists. When official revelations finally started emerging in the 1950s about specially-targeted political violence and cultural repression Is all this "the new antisemitism" against Jews in the Soviet Union, it shattered a generation of Jewish progressives.

that some observers have made so much of ? * See www.pinteleyid.com/marx. Marx words contrasted sharply with Jews' reality; Jews in Marx’s own Prussia had still been in vast poverty as of the early 1800s. Marx himself had been baptized Christian 12 * A Jewish family, highly prominent in banking, particularly in the 19th century. by his Jewish parents to avoid the anti-Jewish discrimination that so often barred Jews from employment. 13 What’s really new isn't about the Left - it's about the Right. Ever since Israel Because the Left hasn't taken anti-Jewish oppression on. won the '67 war, and suddenly looked to the U.S. like a handy little friend in the Whenever the Left is quiet about an issue that matters to Middle East, the Right has put on a new costume: Defenders of Israel and the Jews. people, it leaves a vacuum for the Right to walk into. They use it to their advantage, to draw in people worried about It would be, shall we say, an understatement to note that in the vast sweep of his- that issue, and as moral ammunition for their crusades. tory, Jewish liberation has not exactly been a pet cause of the Right. So why have they gotten away with making fighting antisemitism into a noble Right-wing issue? JERRY FALWELL, who preaches that the Anti-Christ is alive as a male Jew: One of many Right-wing figures who paint themselves as friends to Israel.

The Revolution, the Jews, and the “Generous Offer”

We see the Right acting appalled at antisemitism, and think of it as a Right-wing issue. It was a bargain no self-respecting liberation movement today would touch - and the We don't realize, the Right got to take it because the Left was silent. only offer Jews had. Jews kept working to assimilate for the next 150 years, as chances at integration slipped in and out of their hands. At at the same time, they sought freedom We see the Left not taking on anti-Jewish oppression, and we assume that means it’s by other means: through consistently high involvement in movements for reform and rev- not a significant social justice issue. We forget that every oppressed group we talk olution. From Salonica to Moscow, Baghdad, Buenos Aires and New York, Jews helped about today - people of color, women, form the base of revolutionary movements. There, they were allowed to succeed and wel- queers - got on the agenda only after comed into leadership as had never occurred in jobs and universities - but it was assumed they fought like hell against the estab- they had to transcend their petty Jewish roots. In radical circles, as among their liberal lished voices of the Left to show that emancipators, Jews were told that their Jewish identities should be a remnant of the past. their oppression mattered. The Old Left's perspective that all struggles were second to the class struggle 1950s - American Jews Push Their Ethnicity Underground meant all kinds of groups were shut up, dismissed and disrespected... all in the In the 1930s and 40s, Jewish culture - religious and irreligious - could be seen and name of unity for the revolution. heard on the streets of any American city with a Jewish presence. In the aftermath of World War II and the Holocaust, this was to change. Black Panther women, on the Things have begun to change front lines of multiple struggles. only due to the struggles and contribu- The U.S., now home to the world’s largest remaining Jewish population, appeared to tions of Black people asserting their be the safest country left. American Jews knew they’d better not rock the boat. Plus, with autonomy and building independent liberation movements, feminists, womanists who the G..I. Bill, many were finally making it to the middle class. In the new suburbs, where forced the white-dominated feminist movement to face its racism, the American Indian Jews lived on the inside of white society for the first time, it was fine to have a different Movement, Chicano/as, queers, and so many others on the New Left who, empowered by religion, but not to seem too "ethnic.” Even for atheists, synagogues became the place to their examples, asserted rights to space, respect and support from others. go to hang out with other Jews. Jewish identity was being molded into the guise of a mere religion, with the ethnicity and culture that had nourished Jews shoved out of sight. The Left's problem of silencing oppressed groups comes in part from how Western European gentile revolutionaries responded to oppressed groups on their home turf. Then, just as American Jews were still reeling from news of the European genocide, When French Revolutionaries looked at the Jews, who had, for fourteen centuries, suffered McCarthyism exploded. Progressive Jews became one of the central targets. Jews violence, expulsions, poverty and locked ghettos, and decided to liberate them, a century around the U.S. came under suspicion at work; many lost their jobs or whole careers. In of debates began in Western Europe about whether to grant equal rights to Jews. one of world history’s most publicized trials, two Brooklyn Jewish Communist parents, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, were charged and executed as spies. But no matter how passionately Christian Europeans discussed freedom, equality and human rights, they assumed that to be free, equal and human meant looking and act- The once-large and active Jewish Left was hit hard. Rifke Feinstein of the Congress ing like them. Jews might be permitted their religion, but they’d be expected to trade in of Secular Jewish Organizations remembers that when McCarthyism hit, "whole com- Jewish languages, clothing and distinctive cultures if they wanted real membership in munities of us [Leftist, Yiddish-speaking, secular Jewish schools and organizations] 14 the superior culture that was European civilization. just tried to go underground, to disappear. But when it was over and we poked 15 In 1903, Jews were a radical force so threatening that the Protocols were published to neutralize them. 100 years later, the Left sees Jews as privileged and apolitical at best, or Right-wing oppressors at worst. S o m e t h i n g h a p p e n e d i n b e t w e e n . our heads up, no one else was there." Despite all this, the next generation of Jews were 1903: the faith that our liberation was coming together with all the others. We've seen too again disproportionately involved in justice movements. An amazing 1/2 to 2/3 of the white much evidence that when the times gets confusing, we better watch our backs. Civil Rights workers who went South, for instance, are estimated to have been Jews - When the Left walks out on Jewish liberation, it isolates Jews from the one real despite Jews being 2-3% of the U.S. population. Except now they tended not to identify strategy that can protect us from anti-Jewish targeting: Grassroots solidarity from people as Jews. ‘Jews are a religion,’ said many, ‘and I'm not religious.’ around the world. Without that, we turn to short-term tactics we can manage alone. That's Those Jewish activists, and Jews who became active in the later '60s, are now vital why you'll see Jews pour their energy into building up a militarized Israel, with rights leaders and mentors in many of our movements. When they don't feel connected to their reserved for Jews. It's the half-baked protection of having somewhere to go - of being able Jewishness, or understand anti-Jewish oppression as ongoing, it has an impact on how we to flee every time we need to. But the Left also loses big. all think - or don't think - about this oppression. The Left mistakenly writes current-day Jewish oppression off as fake or minor because it's not based on poverty, skin color or colonized status. But it's exactly that differ- An Open Request From a Jew On the Left ence in our oppression that makes Jews a revolutionary force. Most historians agree that Jews have had a disproportionately large presence in Oppressed groups (including us) can often be fooled into thinking that if they just almost every major social justice movement within their reach. So why, today, are Jews obtain surface reforms they’ll be on their way to freedom: getting their group out of pover- off in distant suburbs, seemingly more conservative all the time? The answer we on the ty, electing leaders who look like them, even winning a country. But in the case of Jews, Left usually give is, “Privilege.” Jews became white, rose to middle class, and - boom! No it is clear that the dangers to us will exist as long as there are 'haves' and 'have-nots' longer directly affected, Jews lost their moral passion & abandoned their old progressive in the world at all. That's because we're not just oppressed by the people at the top - we causes. The full story has much more to teach us. are continuously made vulnerable to violence and used as the 'pressure valve’ whenever Over the last few centuries, hundreds of thousands of Jews around the world have oppression grows worse for other groups. We can't escape the cycle of our oppression as fought in social justice struggles. We fought not only because we longed for a better, long as systems of inequality run the world. more beautiful world, but out of deep faith that freedom for all peoples would also, final- Jewish oppression affects all Jews, in all economic classes, and our oppression cannot ly, bring freedom and safety to Jews. be ended without fighting and transforming social injustice as a whole. What does this The punishment for this revolutionary activity has been shared not only by radical Jews, mean? It means that we are a reserve of revolutionary potential -- in all classes, at all times. but by quiet Jews who tried not to make waves. We have collectively been followed around If ruling classes don't have this in mind as a reason to repress Jews, they probably should. the globe by the accusation that we're subversives tearing up the societies we live in. For our Any Jew who comes to understand the nature of their oppression - and who real- real and imagined radical activities, we've been jailed, tortured, and murdered by govern- izes that the liberation of their people touches them more deeply than any clinging attach- ments and anti-Jewish tinged movements around the world. ment to the status quo - cannot help but become a radical. Plenty of Jews haven’t yet had Yet Jewish communities are filled with people who once made their home in the Left, that “click” of awareness. But a great many of us Jews already do understand this reality. only to back away after continual encounters there with antisemitism. We've now had three One big thing that keeps us from mobilizing ourselves as a people is that we don't have the generations of Jewish activists pull back from the Left for this reason: First in the '50s, com- safety and backup of a Left that will defend us when anti-Jewish targeting rears its head in ing to terms with Soviet antisemitism; next, those discouraged by the New Left's ignorance the world. For this, the Left needs to be brought to deeper awareness. of Jewish oppression; now, young activists starting to feel hopeless about the tolerance of It will benefit social change everywhere when the Left takes up for Jewish liber- anti-Jewish rhetoric in the anti-globalization, anti-war and Palestine solidarity movements. ation. When Jews have one direction in which we no longer have to look over our shoul- There's still tons of Jews on the Left. But it's a lot easier to be there if you don't feel ders, that's when significant numbers of us will be able to stop clinging to stopgap meas- so Jewish (or if you shape your Jewish identity around criticizing bad actions by Jews); a ures and tap into our community’s revolutionary potential. This will require both Jews on lot harder when your Jewishness makes you notice the daily manifestations of ant-- the Left deciding that we’re worthy of solidarity and acting to get it, and gentiles fac- 16 Jewish stuff around you. Because we no longer have what so many Jews had in ing up to their historic responsibility to end anti-Jewish oppression. 17 Time Out! A Word to Jews: A Word to White For those of us who are burned out on dealing with the Left’s ignorance toward People : Jews, hearing our concerns affirmed can feel like a huge relief. But, as Jews, we’ve got problems of our own to fix. Jewish communal institutions are supposed to serve us - to (white Jews included) help us maintain our identity in a culture full of pressures to assimilate, to aid our fami- Up until now this pamphlet has assumed that we all already care lies in times of crisis, to give us ways to express our ethics together. But we’re being rep- about fighting racism against people of color. But the reality is, most of our resented by a mix of official Jewish leaders, who we don’t elect, and business leaders organizations on the Left don’t reflect that. Our organizations exist within a wider, and philanthropists, the informal leaders whose desires shape our community’s agenda institutionalized system of white supremacy, and ego, fear, resentment and confusion because they can make or break Jewish non-profits that depend on their support. keep individual white activists from facing up to our obligation to prioritize racism We have a lot to correct - both in the American Jewish community, and in Israel, as a political, and an everyday, concern. home to almost half of the world’s Jews. We need to talk about the Occupation of the Today the U.S. government’s most high-profile target is Arab and Muslim peo- Palestinian people, the suppression of dissent about it inside the organized Jewish com- ple and nations. However, all people of color remain under heavy attack, from the munity, and the denials in many of our families that it’s quite that bad. We need to expose government’s willful abandonment of and even blatant agression toward New those Jewish leaders buddying up to the Christian Right. Orleans’ Black community, to the impending government plans to execute political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal, to the militarized Mexican border, police brutality, and We need to commit ourselves to fighting racism now in the U.S. - even as we take targeted recruitment of youth of color to be cannon-fodder for U.S. wars. pride in the active role of many Jews in the Civil Rights era. (One of the ways we could start is to help open discussions about America confronting and making reparations for the When white gentiles or white Jews have trouble confronting white privilege, it damage done by slavery. We could model for other Americans what it looks like to take can look more attractive and less uncomfortable to make an issue of antisemitism. this issue on, by acknowledging that there were Jews who participated in the transatlantic Sorry - it won’t be possible to choose between the two. Anti-Jewish oppression can- slave trade.*) We need to awaken to our own diversity, and bring Jews of color, work- not be dealt with in a movement that isn’t also utterly dedicated to fighting the ing-class, queer and secular Jews into the heart of our community, where they belong. oppression of people of color, both in the larger world and in our movements.

Facing the Occupation is the greatest challenge; especially because Jews do face danger, and Israel is supposed to be the one thing that keeps us safe. Many of us have been A Word to Everyone: trained to think the best way to protect ourselves is to go along uncritically with Israeli For most activists, it is ideally already common sense that criticizing Israeli pol- policy, and channel our energy into halting any criticism of it. Let us begin to confront icy or the ideology of Zionism is in no sense inherently antisemitic. But in many antisemitism itself - and call unjust policies what they are, while we search for solutions places outside the Left, it’s not common sense. It's vital that activists - particularly that could really make us safe. We have the right and the duty to stand up for this. those concerned about anti-Jewish oppression - take a stand when scurrilous charges *A segment of primarily Spanish and Portuguese Jews took part, alongside white gentiles, of antisemitism are targeted at progressive organizations and scholars. That includes in the slave trade. Jews’ discomfort with acknowledging this has held back our ability to doing hard, long-term education and communication with activists who are unfairly build alliances of trust with African American activists, and some in those communities have attacked but who do have some antisemitism to rectify (a job for gentile allies). 18 channeled their disappointment into antisemitism, blaming Jews for slavery as a whole. 19 what you oppose, and critique actions and policy as unjust -- not people or nations as evil. And when people suggest that they see targeting of Jews in something you’re say- "You're not pro-Palestinian.. ing or doing, don’t shoot them down; seek out useful information in what they’re saying that might help you give your message even more clarity and impact. ...You’re antisemitic!” If you work to support Palestinian self-determination, you’ve heard Antisemitic ideas Lines emerging this sort of thing countless times. Sometimes Clear criticisms of often repeated by directly from neo- it comes from Right-wing ideologues whose Israeli policy & its backers activists with no anti- nazi & antisemitic aim is to shut down debate about Palestinian organizations rights. Other times it comes from Jews who Jewish intentions are so scared of real antisemitism that they Israel has a repeated & ongoing record “Israel is a worse humans "Israel is the root of the can't tell when a criticism of Israel is not driv- of human rights offenses. rights violator than most or all world's problems.” en by hatred of Jews. Either way, it's insulting other countries.” to activists and - above all - to Palestinians. Many Israeli soldiers justify their actions A Palestinian girl meets her relative, previously "Israel is worse than the toward Palestinians by saying they’re ‘just “Israelis are just like Nazis.“ imprisoned by Israel, at Tulkarem checkpoint. Nazis,” “This wouldn't have Yet instances of anti-Jewish behavior following orders.’ do come up in Palestine work more than many parts of the Left: Why? It's not because happened if the Nazis Palestinian or Arab activists are more anti-Jewish than other people. In fact, they often The Zionist movement has included ele- were successful," etc. have a sharper eye than others for catching and interrupting anti-Jewish thinking. ments of racism from its early days, such as the claim that Palestine was “a land "The Zionist conspiracy is One reason is simple: Any issue where Jews are very visible will bring out the anti- without a people for a people without a “Zionism is racism.” behind this," “Zionism is semitism that already exists in the world. Another is more complex: In an issue where land.” Major Zionist factions have imple- the root of the world’s some Jews do have real power; it can get hard to tell what's an accurate observation of mented conscious, intentional racist poli- problems today,” etc. unjust actions they have done, and what's antisemitic thinking. For instance, if Israel gets cy. Regardless of individual Zionists’ continually allowed to flout international law; if pro-Palestine activists suffer censorship intentions, Zionism as a whole has had or are ruled out for funding or jobs because of controversy this issue raises, some activists racist & oppressive results for the “Israel / start to mistake Jews for a vast powerful network, or a conspiracy that calls all the shots. Palestinian people. The Zionists / A third problem arises from normal activist tactics. We often fight campaigns by AIPAC,* weapons lobbies & others give “The ‘Israel Lobby’ is what is The Jews / making our opponents look as bad as possible. The Left doesn't have tons of money, or U.S. politicians incentives to push anti- pushing America off track & The Jewish Lobby... muscle on Capitol Hill. One of the strengths we do have is moral power to make the other Palestinian policies, & attempt to silence & away from its true interests, is controlling the U.S. / the world.” side look bad enough that the world shames them into reversing their policy. In campaigns intimidate both Jews & non-Jews who or caused us to go to war.” for AIDS funding, fair housing, prison rights, you name it, one of our main tactics is to raise alternatives. “Zionist control of the make our opponents out to be cold, cruel and inhuman. In this issue, as in so many, the corporate “The media, controlled by media is part of a vast media provide one-dimensional, sensa- Zionists, never talks about the web of Zionist power over But when you use tactics like that on a group that's historically been portrayed tionalized coverage, usually biased toward plight of the Palestinians.” banks & world gover- as evil and inhuman, where that image has been used for centuries as a tool to incite mass whatever side the U.S. government is ments, in their conspiracy violence against them, you tap into a larger historical power. A power that's bigger than backing - when they cover it at all. to rule over humanity.” the Left, and has its own momentum. “The Israel-Palestine conflict Lack of a resolution between Israel & is the root of violence & insta- “Everything would be At the very birth of the Palestinians' catastrophe lies antisemitism, the force that cre- Palestine is one of several major regional bility in the Middle East / of better if Israel was ated the Jewish search for a modern state. And building a world that fights the oppression conflicts preventing justice & stability in the America’s bad relationship destroyed," etc. of Jews, and all humans, is the ultimate solution to today's condition, in which Jews cling Middle East. Outside powers such as the with Arab countries.” U.S. & Europe have played & play a role so hard to a tiny place of safety for themselves at the cost of oppressing Palestinians. Yet * American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a major Palestinians don’t have the luxury of waiting for antisemitism to be eradicated to strug- in sparking & perpetuating these conflicts. Right-wing, pro-Israeli expansionism lobby group. gle for their own freedom. So let's guarantee the short-term battle supports the long-term goals, by consciously building safeguards to Jews into tactics for Palestinian liberation. It's true - everything in Column 1 takes longer to say, and is less catchy. But when you choose to make accurate, specific criticisms of Israeli policy, you do your It's absolutely possible to critique Israel without being antisemitic - but it's not small part to decrease the likelihood that I will be killed in a synagogue by someone 20 automatic. You keep things clear when you describe accurately and specifically (who, misguided by anti-Jewish oppression, thought they would be helping Palestine.)21 it was a good try, but time to rethink. innoculate your Palestine work on targeting “zionism” against antisemitism - If you're white, understand: When you take no action to stop anti-Jewish pat- A lot of activists work to avoid anti-Jewish oppres- terns in our movements, you set Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims up to take the sion, and to make a distinction between Jewish people fall. Though historic Left mistreatment of Jews has largely been a legacy of white, and Israeli misdeeds, by targeting their comments at European/American movements, Arabs and Muslims are the ones who today get "Zionists," not Jews, and "Zionism," not Judaism or Jewish publicly scapegoated for charges of Left antisemitism. Don't let them pay the price. culture. Unfortunately, this shortcut doesn't work. Take the struggle on. Sign, 9/24/05 anti-war mobilization, D.C. First, it backfires because major, organized antisemitic movements also use - Beware of saying Israel is the only country doing anything, or the worst case the term, for the opposite purpose: to spread anti-Jewish ideology without looking of any given injustice; it’s often not true, and it gets used to justify global violence so bad. That's why 2005's international conference, "Zionism As the Biggest Threat to against Jews. Know and speak about countries guilty of similar offenses. This not Modern Civilization" was co-chaired by neo-nazi politician David Duke. For many only guard against danger to Jews; it brings a global perspective that strengthen antisemitic groups, “Zionists” are the demonic Jews controlling the world, Protocol- the fights of all peoples, even while we focus on Palestinians. style; and “Zionism” is the general body of evildoing by Jews. Because we activists are only suspicious of Jew-bashing, not attacks on “Zionists,” their antisemitic - Be specific about the injustice you're talking about. For instance, don’t jump into imagery makes its way right into our circles. Second, because it replaces one one- generalizations like “Israelis are like Nazis.” Focus on the original thought that led dimensional image of a 'bad guy' with another. It bypasses the actual work of there; ie, “Israeli policies like [blank] treat Palestinians as if they’re not human.” avoiding anti-Jewish oppression: reshaping how we think and talk about Jews and Israelis to see them as 3-dimensional human beings, capable of wrongdoing like any - Remember that, as with every oppression, it’s possible to spread antisemitic others. Finally, using the term "Zionists" doesn't protect Jews. It just makes people ideas without necessarily harboring any ill will toward Jews. Stay open to re-eval- who bomb Jewish schools, synagogues, etc., call the people they're killing Zionists. uating tactics, even though you know your intentions are positive and just.

Principled anti-Zionism has little to do with the fake "Zionism" that antisemites - Don't casually use one-dimensional, charicatured portrayals of cruel Israelis. like Duke attack. There are many rational reasons why some people are opposed to the Rather than sensationalizing Israelis, and compounding anti-Jewish oppression in a philosophy that there should be a Jewish state, just as lots of rational reasons motivate world that already paints Jews as evil, help people see Palestinians: real people, suf- others to believe a Jewish state is neccessary.* fering daily injustice, both mundane and extreme, and deserving of global attention.

Zionism is not an insult. It's not a catch phrase, a code word for racism or - At the center of Palestinians’ struggle for freedom and human dignity is their imperialism, or the name for unpleasant things done by Jews. It's a nationalism, human and legal Right to Return to their land. But there are real reasons why Jews and, as often happens with nationalisms, it has not fully liberated its people and has around the world fear losing majority control of Israel. (See p. 25.) If you fight for oppressed others in the process. It stands for a huge range of beliefs and believers: the Right to Return, understand the implications it could have for Jews in a world from the Right-wing racist who wants to ‘transfer’ (forcibly expel) all Palestinians, where anti-Jewish oppression has not been solved. Consider what role you can to the person who wants Jews to have a self-determined state in the only land to play in bringing about global safety for Jewish people. which Jewish diaspora ethnicities around the world have shared a cultural tie, to the - If people use opposition to the term 'antisemitism' to shut down discussion, by person who wants to keep living as a Jew in the “Land of Israel” but is open to liv- all means, speak of anti-Jewish oppression. But speak of it. Don't let fellow ing in a binational, Palestinian-Jewish state. activists silence conversation about antisemitism by complaining that the word is There's no shame in thinking critically toward Zionism. But in a world of unre- wrong, and blaming Jews for the problem. (See page 6.) solved antisemitism, there's also no getting out of fighting this oppression head on. A b o v e a l l , r e m e m b e r : * For instance: An anti-Zionist might rationally oppose Zionists' having consciously estab- Taking care to resist antisemitism is not about walking on eggshells or acquiesc- lished a state where they did, knowing that this would lead to dispossessing the Palestinian people. A Zionist might observe that Jews' vulnerability was linked to being a permanently ing to pressure. It's about making a greater commitment to refusing to take part in 22 small minority and support Jews having one place where they are the governing majority. oppression - and building movements that can win. 23 A final word about this twisty subject... Why do many Jews fight so hard against the Right to Return? (See p. 23.) The foundation of Israel, The fact that many Jews fiercely oppose the Palestinian Right to Return, and the and Israel’s ongoing poli- related vision of a peaceful bi-national state, befuddles many activists, who see a shared democracy where both Jews and Palestinians receive respect as one of the most hopeful

cies, have contributed to Goran Tomasevic and just solutions imaginable. But, along with Israel's denials of its responsibility for the massive suffering for the refugee crisis, there is a second, and deeper issue involved: Jews have had convincing Palestinian people. credit: experiences that lacking a place to run to can have life-or-death consequences. In 1938, 32 nations met in Evian-les-Bains, France to discuss whether to allow And the country’s actions, European Jews, desperate to flee the Nazis, into their countries. 31 of them - all but the as well as its alliance with Dominican Republic - refused. Evian was an awful culmination of centuries of Jews’ the U.S., fuel anger around attempts to flee forced conversion, violence and expulsion; to which Jews were vulnerable, the world at Israel. A Palestinian girl searches for her family’s belongings in the rubble of partly because as a small diaspora they were minorities in every place, at the mercy of their home after the Israeli invasion of Jenin. elites. Many fear that if Palestinians achieve Return inside Israel's 1948 borders, win true democratic rights and grow to be a majority, it might end Jewish control over immigration But Israel did not, and does not, cause antisemitism. to Israel, which many see as their safeguard in case of an anti-Jewish resurgence. No matter how frightening a physical implementation of Return may sound, Jews Being angry at or critical of the actions of a country is different from buying into racist must take the fundamental step to acknowledge Palestinians’ human Right to Return. mythologies about a people. If there are people who believe not only that Israel acts unjustly, but that Jews control the world or that the Holocaust never happened, there are deeper anti-Jewish influences at work. Israel doesn't indoctrinate people in Kiev, Deconstructing common myths Denver or Paris to think that Jews are all rich, in league with the devil, or that they bake with It helps to get familiar with basic anti-Jewish myths. How many activists know, when they see children's blood. Israel doesn't make New York, Damascus and Mexico City vendors sell the images of Sharon eating babies, Israeli vampires, or protest signs picturing "Palestinian baby- Protocols, or fund local movie industries to televise them. It doesn't make Americans meat," "slaughtered with American $ according to Jewish rites," that they're viewing an anti- (activists included) so unaware of the world beyond our borders that we believe Israel is the semitic myth, the Blood Libel, in action since medieval times? Here are a few common myths. only country committing the violations it has. It doesn’t need to; because long before Israel or Zionism existed, the targeting of Jews was well entrenched in these lands. Controlling the World / One problematic way this occurs on the Left is when activists teach that things for the Government Jews in Arab lands were fine until Israel came along. Jews did live in greater harmony The idea that Jews control the government or the world in Arab lands than in Europe. But as religious minorities, they also experienced oppres- began with traditional Church authorities passing down sion which could range from mild, routine degradation to violent mob attacks. This legacy images of Jews as a group in league with the Devil, with spe- was compounded by colonizing regimes, who brought European antisemitic theories into cial powers from the Devil that gave them evil control over the region. But the story was different in each country and each time; and in the hearts of earthly events. Christian rulers furthered the myth that Jews were in control, by sticking Jews in the 'face of power' roles many of the Jews who lived there, Arab culture will always remain home. with which everyday peasants interacted (ie, tax collectors).

When Americans beat up Arabs and Sikhs after 9/11, it wasn’t ‘because of’ what As European culture grew more secular, the idea was modernized, and brought to a new Saudi hijackers did; it was because of our society’s pre-existing bigotry and lust for a scape- level of worldwide fame in the form of 1903’s Protocols of the Elders of Zion forgery. During goat. Likewise, when Arab governments took advantage of growing conflict with Zionism the Nazi years, this European propaganda was imported to non-European cultures, such as and Israel to seize Jews’ homes and savings and expel them; when people beat and mur- Arab countries, where oppression of Jews had previously been based not on myths of Jewish dered Jews in the streets in Syria and Aden in 1947, Libya in 1967, and elsewhere, it was- world power, but on simpler notions that Jews ought to stay in their place as 2nd-class citizens. n’t ‘because of’ Israel. So don’t tell us that the global attacks on Jews will end when Israel Left Examples: Activists expanding criticism of the ‘Israel Lobby’ to present Israel as stops what it's doing. Israel needs to stop oppressing the Palestinians because it's wrong - no the ‘tail wagging the dog’ that controls U.S. policy. The grassroots news websites and protes- further reason is needed. But when it does, anti-Jewish oppression will still be here, tors’ signs that joined in spreading false internet rumors of an Ariel Sharon quote on Israeli 24 because it didn't start in ‘48. If it's going to end, you're going to have to help end it. radio: "We, the Jewish people control America, and the Americans know it.” 25 Causing the Wars / Causing the Loss of Wars Somebody should write a pamphlet for activists tion before WW II in the U.S. and after it in Europe, blaming Jews for bringing just about how to respond when Jews get blamed them into "the Jews' war" (in places like Poland, Holocaust survivors were mur- for wars - it happens so regularly you can set your dered as they left the camps by Poles who blamed them for the war); 1950s anti- watch to it. Jews were the default "outsider" Communism, which drew attention to Jewish progressives as a suspected "fifth col- group in so many societies; always handy to tar- umn" seeking America's downfall to the Reds, and executed the Rosenbergs for get when things went wrong. What's more, Jews supposedly giving away 'the Bomb' to the Soviets; Arab Jews being treated as an were treated so badly in many of these societies, enemy within by their governments; and everywhere, suspected of “dual loyal- it was usually easy for people to imagine that the ties.” Jews have so often been accused of shirking wartime duty that Jews in many Jews wished another country would take over and countries maintain committees which defend Jewish veterans and keep records of change their conditions. We can see this as early the names and numbers of Jews who served and died in the line of duty, knowing as 711, when the Muslim Moors conquered they will literally need to prove their sacrifice next time the accusations return. Spain. Christian Spaniards thereafter claimed the Jews had invited the Moors in. Left Example: Claims that the U.S. wouldn't be in Iraq if it weren't for a nefari- Sign, Feb. ‘03 anti-war protest, S.F. ous Jewish influence (the state of Israel and its lobby controlling us, a clique of Jewish In the past century alone we've had the 1894 Dreyfus Affair (high officers neo-cons who've gotten the nation all off course, etc.). Anyone who's been paying atten- framed a Jewish captain for treason, and France exploded with anti-Jewish vitriol); tion to Bush's own vision, or to U.S. foreign policy since 1898, could have guessed we'd the 1918 accusations by Germans that they had lost the World War because the be trying to score one for the empire -- with or without those neo-cons. As always, the country's Jews had conspired a "stab in the back" against Germany; populist agita big winner from these accusations is the corrupt government at fault for the war.

With all the time they save by not as Jews living outside of large as Israeli Jews, facing every- Jewish communities, figuring out how to running the world, what do Jews think about ? day economic worries, decisions even find other Jews - and gaining courage to about army service; and finding ‘come out’ as Jews at work & school, when as mixed Jews, as secular words to explain to outsiders that the reactions may not always be positive wanting to honor all Jews, fighting Israel isn’t just a bad occupier or sides of our heritage. assumptions that someone’s imaginary, idealized holy Jewishness and land, but the real place we come Judaism are one from... with all its shades of gray. and the same.

as working class Jews, as fighting our questioning invisibility in Jews, asking the American ourselves: Jewish am I a community secular Jew, (and, among as Jews of color, con- a synagogue non-Jews, in fronting Ashkenazi dominance Jew general) in Jewish society, organizing - or both? ourselves to get just treatment, and preserving and cherishing 26 our own cultures. 27 Controlling the Banks Tips for every activist Many myths, such as that Jews control the media, the banks and Hollywood, came from the concentration of - Whether you’re a Palestine activist or not, 1) Help activists around you follow the tips from p. 19. 2) Don’t think using the word “Zionist” instead of “Jew” Jews in certain fields due to institutional discrimination. means you’ve avoided antisemitism. 3) When people raise talk of antisemitism, For centuries in Christian empires, Jews were not legally train your mind to not go automatically to the Israel/Palestine conflict; consid- permitted in mainstream professions. They often survived er the issue in its own right. Both are separate, vital issues that demand our concern. by working at trades forbidden to, or considered ‘beneath’ Christians - like professional acting, or collecting taxes or - Fighting anti-Jewish oppression does not equal organizing against bad things rent. One such job was moneylending. Although some Jews do and saying that will help end hatred of Jews. It means actively combating Jews were moneylenders and benefited from economic both anti-Jewish actions and beliefs, whether they come from overtly antisemitic privilege, most remained poor, and the classic dynamic of movements or groups you think are cool and want to team up with politically. anti-Jewish oppression went on: Jews who got to work did so at the price of everyday - Mainstream Jews often feel more entitled than they should to accuse your work of anti- exposure to the violence and anger of poor peasants in debt; rulers got to use them as semitism. But many radical Jews have the opposite problem: We tend to doubt and dis- scapegoats in times of economic instability. The attacks that got channeled toward Jews miss ourselves when we notice anti-Jewish patterns happening. This holds our whole were absorbed by the few money-lenders and the poverty-stricken majority alike. movements back. Help us out: Give us the space all oppressed groups should get, by let- ting us err on the side of noticing antisemitism "too much" as we figure it out. It gets easier to identify and reject antisemitism when you Learn more: - Understand that Jewishness is a cultural identity, an ethnic identity and a reli- recognize the classic myths and their history. Take time to educate yourself on myths gious (or non-religious) identity. Understand that racism plays a key part in anti- such as: that Jews control Hollywood or the media, that Jews killed Jesus, that Jews Jewish oppression, even if you retain the word racism to refer to people of color. kill and/or eat gentile children (the Blood Libel), that Jews were at fault for the cre- ation of racism (the ‘Hamitic curse’ charge), and more. - Learn about and support Jews of color. Educate yourself about global Jewish communities and histories, and speak out in your organizing to ensure that the voices of Jews of color are heard -- including the Jews of color who are sitting in front of you, asking you to listen. Don’t assume that the Jew you’re speaking to is as a people that’s had so many reasons to hide, Ashkenazi, or that the person of color you’re speaking to is not Jewish. reclaiming beloved languages and culture that genocide, - In antiracism trainings, acknowledge that antisemitism has historically been a expulsion and assimilation major form of racism, and can still take the form of racism, as when people charac- have separated us from. terize Jews as sub-human or demonic. Don't assume that someone bringing up anti- semitism is trying to avoid focusing on racism. Taking a moment to affirm the importance of radical organizing against antisemitism strengthens your analysis, as and allows you to maintain your chosen focus on racism against people of color. observant Jews, struggling to - Have a plan in your organizations for what happens when it appears something maintain our tra- antisemitic (or racist, homophobic, etc.) has been said or done. What will be said ditions without and who will say it? How will people check in with the Jews present later to sup- getting left out of our secular port them and/or correct harm done? Be serious about carrying it out every time. friends’ lives. - Jewish internalized oppression is intense, and it's often invisible to those of us who are most affected by it, or whose ancestors were deeply impacted by it. Don't tok- as queer Jews, wishing enize Jews by choosing ones who don't think antisemitism is a big deal to rep- we didn’t have to hold one side resent the Jewish perspective in your events. of ourselves back depending on which community we’re with. - Recognize that either antisemitism will be fought and ended by the Left, by our grassroots justice & liberation movements, or it will not be ended. No matter what the Right pretends to care about, it is not in the Right's inter- 28 ...to name a few. est to end anti-Jewish oppression. Stop waiting for someone else to do it. 29 If we remain passive about anti-Jewish What actions in our ranks and the world, we But there’s another future in our will put Jews in increased danger. grasp. One that follows in the footsteps will happen if That’s all the reason we need to change. of the many radicals who have stood But up against antisemitism, like French In the larger world, our passivity will our movements also help to strengthen white supremacy Socialist Jean Jaures and lesbian fem- what if - its organized movements, and the whole inist Black radical Barbara Smith. don’t act? culture that sees whites as good and pure, Clearsighted activists for genera- we and Others (like people of color and Jews) as succeed tions have understood that there’s a the ones messing everything up. We’ll help bonus that comes from taking this in this ? Europe evade responsibility for the damage done by colo- “UNCLE SHAM WANTS struggle on: Antisemitism is a warning YOU”: A Neo-nazi nialism, as Europeans blame Israel for anti-Western feelings and anti-war poster uses instability around the world. We’ll aid reactionary regimes and sign that tells us we’re not giving people a clear Jewish-control mythol- movements everywhere that seek to boost themselves by blaming answer about where injustice originates, and what would solve it. Fighting it sharp- ogy to depopularize their own actions on Israel, as the President of Sudan does when ens our analysis and forces us to get better at articulating our beliefs to a mass audi- the Iraq war. Seen in ence. If we say, ‘The problems in the world do not come from the Jews,’ it forces New York City, 11/06. he claims the Darfur genocide is a hoax perpetrated by Israel. us to answer: What do they come from? When the Left takes on antisemitism, it Inside our movements, overlooking attacks on will be strength training to help us gain the abilities we need to reshape the world. Jews will lure us into alliances with Far Right move- ments and visions. We will lose effectiveness at chal- A truly radical remaking of the world will include Jewish liberation: the con- lenging the global systems we’re up against, as our per- dition in which Jews in every place in the world will live free from fear, free from ceptions of new social developments are clouded by threat of being targeted as Jews, and where our safety never depends on pleasing or misjudgments of who are our allies and enemies. New remaining useful to any 'side', be it powerful elites or peoples' movements. In which activists, and people on the edges of our movements, we will live free of pressure (from ourselves or others) to blend in or assimilate; will be allowed to hold onto wrong analyses of who unashamed of our Jewish looks, languages, rituals and distinctive behaviors; and has power in this world and where problems stem from. Jewish culture will be nurtured in all its diversity. In which those Jews who wish to We will lose valuable activists in our ranks who will be able to participate in collective self-determination as a people, and/or live in are uncomfortable with the targeting of Jews they’re autonomous Jewish space. In which Jews will be capable of defending ourselves, noticing around them. And on the most every-day level, but will be defended and shown solidarity by groups around the world. we’ll continue to enable jerk-dominance of our move- True Jewish liberation requires the commitment and action of both Jews and ments, attracting the sorts of activist leaders who used non-Jews worldwide, and is incompatible with the oppression of any other group: to get a kick out of making rude comments about peo- because no human group is expendable in revolutionary change. ple of color, and now enjoy getting to shock everyone with anti-Jewish declarations, without getting ‘caught.’ When the Left finally gets that - not just about Jews but about liberation Most immediately, we’ll leave Jews with- itself - then our efforts will truly make another world possible. Because the Left out hopes for solidarity, for alternative means of is not a mercenary army: We're not just in this to win, choosing sides and then fight- self-defense. As Jews flounder for ways to protect ing blindly for whatever side we're on. We're in this to make a different world. And themselves, we’ll continue to push them into the taking on anti-Jewish oppression is the act of building a Left not confined to reac- waiting arms of the Right, with its visions of tion, but propelled by a deeper vision of a world we would actually want to live in. empire and Armageddon. That’s dangerous to Palestinians, to Jews, and to the world. See you there! Nov. ‘03: The bloody prayer shawl of a Jewish victim in the simulta- neous bombing of Istanbul’s two most active synagogues. 27 people 30 were killed and 300 injured by bombs set to go off during services. 31 antisemitism - The system of ideas passed down through a society's institutions to enable Mizrachi - Refers to Jews descended from the longest continuous Jewish communities in the scapegoating of Jews, and the ideological or physical targeting of Jews that results from that. world, founded after the destruction of ancient Israel, in countries such as today’s Iraq, Iran, The term was first popularized in 1879 by German anti-Jewish racists who sought to build Yemen, Syria and Lebanon, and spoke languages such as Judeo-Arabic and Judeo-Persian. specific movements against Jews as an inherently inferior and threatening race (versus a reli- gion, which could be escaped through conversion). For how it works, see p. 4-5. Old Left - Refers to the mass movements and party organizations that flourished into the 1930s and '40s in the U.S. and were greatly wounded by McCarthyism. Old Left groups

Ashkenazi - Refers to y descendants of Jews who settled in Europe, in countries such as largely defined themselves in relation to European movements and theories, as opposed to Russia, Poland, Germany, Hungary and others, and shared common cultural features such as the New Left which emerged after McCarthyism and Civil Rights, and took particular inspi- Yiddish language. Ashkenazi Jews currently make up the majority of Jews in the U.S., Latin ration from global anticolonial struggles. America and Canada. Orientalism - A discourse that portrays peoples and cultures of "the East" (Arabs and Jews, Blood Libel - The anti-Jewish myth, beginning in the 1100s, that Jews seek out and kill non- East Asians, South Asians, etc.) as essentially different from Europeans. Frequent themes Jewish children. In its classic form, it accuses Jewish communities of seeking the blood of include portraying them as dishonestly or manipulatively intelligent, overly sensual, warlike, r gentiles to use in Jewish religious rituals; for instance, as an ingredient in Passover matzah. mysterious, having 'primitive' tribal loyalties, etc. Also the term for classical Western study of "Oriental" cultures. diaspora - refers to the breaking up and separating of the members of a people, and the geo- graphically scattered communities that they create in the course of their travels. pogrom - A mass action of planned or spontaneous violence and property destruction direct- ed against a marginalized community. The word was first widely used to describe govern- gentile - (noun) A non-Jewish person; (adjective) non-Jewish. [From the Latin gens, clan.] ment-condoned mob attacks on East-European Jewish towns.

a internalized oppression - The effects of a group's oppression and dehumanization, as man- Protocols of [the Elders of] Zion - A forgery written around 1897, first published in 1903, ifested within the oppressed group itself, in its individuals or its communities. A Jew coping and used by Czarist secret police for years as a tool to inspire mass mistrust of the growing with internalized oppression might believe stereotypes about Jews, point undeserved blame revolutionary movement and modernization. The text presents itself as minutes of a secret at other Jews, feel shame or disgust at parts of their looks or behavior that they think of as meeting of world Jewish leaders who lay out their plans to use both capitalism and anti-cap- Jewish, feel general low self-esteem, find it hard to take a stand against antisemitism, or feel italist revolution to seize control of the world. A continual bestseller, it is often summarized a desire to emphasize tos others how different or separate they are from other Jews. See p. 6. or cited by antisemitic political leaders and social movements.

Jews - A globally-dispersed, multi-ethnic culture linked by a religion, Judaism. Many Jews the Rosenbergs - Ethel & Julius, z"l. Jewish Communist couple executed in 1953 based on practice the religion; others are ethnic, secular Jews. See full definition on page 5. largely fabricated evidence that they gave nuclear secrets to the USSR. The case, which tar- geted their politics, was highly publicized to inspire fear and hysteria against Leftists. Jewish liberation - The condition in which Jews in every place in the world will live free from fear, free from threat of beings targeted as Jews, and where our safety never depends on pleas- secular - Non-religious. ing or remaining useful to any 'side', be it powerful elites or peoples' movements. In which we will live without pressure (from ourselves or others) to blend in or assimilate, unashamed of our Semite / Semitic - Linguistic term created by European Orientalists for the language family Jewish looks, languages, rituals and distinctive behaviors, and Jewish culture will be nurtured that includes Arabic, Amharic, Hebrew, Tigrinya, Maltese, Aramaic and others, which was in all its diversity. In which Jews will be capable of defending ourselves, but will be defended then imposed on groups like Arabs and Jews to categorize them as a separate race. and shown solidarity by groups around the world. In which those Jews who wish to will be able o to participate in collective self-determination as a people, and/or live in autonomous Jewish Sephardi - Refers to the worldwide descendants of Spanish and Portuguese Jews who, when space. True Jewish liberation requires the commitment and action of both Jews and non-Jews made refugees by the Inquisition, fled to, and founded new communities in, places such as around the world, and is incompatible with the oppression of any other group. North Africa, Turkey, the Americas, and parts of Europe. Examples of Sephardic languages are Judezmo/Ladino and Hakitia.

Jews of color - Jews andl Jewish communities who are excluded from white privilege gener- ally, and/or from Ashkenazi privilege in the Jewish community. Includes Mizrachi Jews, Zionism - One form of Jewish nationalism, based on the philosophy that a Sephardi Jews, Jews from other non-European communities worldwide, people of color who Jewish state (or cultural center, in some forms of Zionism) ought to exist, as have embraced Judaism, and Jews of mixed heritage whose ancestry includes Jews of color. a refuge for Jews and/or to 'normalize' Jewish existence, and that it should Jews of color currently make up the majority of Jews in the state of Israel. exist on or within the area of ancient Israel. Ilan Halimi, the Left / Leftist - Theg diverse spectrum of social change movements, organizations and z”l - Abbreviation for zichrono (or zichrona) l’bracha: May z”l, killed individual activists who seek to transform society into one which distributes resources just- their memory be for a blessing. Saying used in Jewish custom at 23. Paris, 32 ly, and lacks hierarchies of race, gender, religion, etc. to commemorate the lives of loved ones. Jan. ‘06. F u r t h e r R e s o u r c e s : Note: Second dates indicate most recent editions. *= Good starters for a basic collection Anti-Jewish oppression’s history: The Devil and the Jews by Joshua Trachtenberg (1944/1984); Toward the Final Solution: A History of European Racism by George Mosse (1985); Protocols of Zion [documentary] by Marc Levin (2005); Constantine’s Sword by James Carroll (2001); Russian Antisemitism, Pamyat, and the Demonology of Zionism, by William Korey (1995); *“The Longest Hatred,” in New Internationalist 372 (2004) [See links]; Antisemitism in America, by Leonard Dinnerstein (1994/1995) Jewish history: A Historical Atlas of the Jewish People, Eli Barnavi, ed. (1992/2002); *The Jew in the Modern World: A Documentary History, Paul Mendes-Flohr & Jehuda Reinharz, eds. (1980/1995); Power and Powerlessness in Jewish History, by David Biale (1986); Torn at the Roots: The Crisis of Jewish Liberalism in Postwar America, by Michael Staub (2002); www.newjewishagenda.org, [website] by Emily Nepon (2006); *The Holocaust in American Life, by Peter Novick (1999); *Jewish Issues in Multiculturalism: A Handbook for Clinicians and Educators, by Peter Langman (1999); Radicals on antisemitism: “That's Funny, You Don't Look Anti-Semitic: An anti-racist analysis of left anti-semitism,” by Steve Cohen (1984/2005) [See links]; *“The Cyclical Nature of Jewish Oppression,” [skit] by Progressives Challenging Anti-Semitism Among Progressives (1998)[See links]; *Yours in Struggle: Three Feminist Perspectives on Anti- Semitism and Racism, by Elly Bulkin, Minnie Bruce Pratt & Barbara Smith (1984/1991); “Anti-Semitism,” [speech] by Cherie Brown (2004) [See links]; The Socialism of Fools: Anti-Semitism On the Left, by Michael Lerner (1992); Reframing Anti-Semitism: Alternative Jewish Perspectives, Jewish Voice for Peace, eds. (2004/6th ed.) Jewish identity & liberation: *Chutzpah: A Jewish Liberation Anthology, Steven Lubet & the Chutzpah Collective, eds. (1977) ; *The Flying Camel: Essays on Identity by Women of North African and Middle Eastern Jewish Heritage, Loolwa Khazzoom, ed. (2003); *The Issue is Power: Essays on Women, Jews, Violence & Resistance, by Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz (1992); The Colors of Jews, by Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz (forthcoming); Davita's Harp [novel] by Chaim Potok (1985/1996); *" ‘I'm Not White, I'm Jewish’: Standing As Jews in the Fight for Racial Justice," [speech] by Paul Kivel (1998), [See links]; “How Did Jews Become White Folks?,” [short essay version] by Karen Brodkin (Sacks) from Race, Steven Gregory and Roger Sanjek, eds. (1994) Bringing an understanding of Jewish oppression into Israel/Palestine/Jewish-Arab work: *“A Big Piece is Missing From This ‘Peace’,” by Loolwa Khazzoom, in Clamor #5 (2000) [See links]; "O Havruta O Mituta: How to Strengthen the Palestine Solidarity Movement By Making Friends With Jews,” by Guy Izhak Austrian (2003) [See links]; Jews and Arabs, by Albert Memmi (1975/1976) Organizations (from varying perspectives): Facing A Challenge Within, www.facin- gachallenge.com; Political Research Associates, www.publiceye.org; Engage, www.engageonline.org.uk/home; Catalyst Project, www.collectiveliberation.org

Deconstructing anti-Jewish myths: See a list of excellent web-based articles, broken down by myth, at www.pinteleyid.com/myths.html

See links for all web resources at www.thepast.info, under “Links”